Sixteen year old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back? The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don't exist \- almost.
The reader lives through the traumatic abduction with Gemma. From fear, anger, depression, even to a sense of acceptance. Set in outbreak Australia, the descriptions of the wild, open land are hypnotic and poetic, bringing a sense of calmness to the storyline.
This book is far more than a black and white case of abduction, more than a sinister monster who took a teenage girl away from the world she's ever known. Gemma's letter recalls how Ty romanticises the land, the life and the crime he ultimately committed, but these are Gemma's thoughts and they feel more complex than simply a case of Stockholm Syndrome.
