Having read Like Hell by Madeline Stanford some time ago, I was expecting this story to be good, and it didn’t disappoint. The story is centred around Aurora, whose Grandmother predicts the dates on which the pair of them will die. When her Grandmother’s prediction for her death date comes true, Rory starts a countdown to her own death and starts trying to live life to the full.
Everyone loves a good seaside romance, and Vanilla is among one of the best. Meet Flo – forced to go and live in sleepy Walden-on-Sea with her Gran when her sister, Nora, gets a flat with her boyfriend. After her parents died in a car accident, Gran and Nora are all the family she has left.
I saw this book on a shelf in Waterstones, and I knew I had to have it. I went home right away and put it on my birthday wish list. It wasn’t the plot that excited me initially – it was the way the story is told.
While on first glance The Walled City appears to be a dystopian fiction, the book is actually based on a very real place: The Kowloon walled city in Hong Kong was once home to a Chinese military base. There was no architectural plan, which led to makeshift buildings being thrown up without a proper plan. The result was a haven of drug lords, poverty and a home for black markets and brothels.
The Walled City is based entirely on this premise.
