Dani has had a hard life which has seen her in and out of prison. This time though being on the inside feels different, Dani now has a daughter Bethany who is living with Foster Parents. Her cellmate is pregnant and is off to the mother and baby unit meaning that she will soon be getting a new cellmate.

The new girl Martha isn’t like the other inmates, she’s a little weird and quiet but looks can be deceptive. She tells Dani that she has visions and that she can make spells, including ones that could get Dani out of prison to be with her daughter.

With the option of staying clean and going through rehabilitation programmes the alternative before she can be with her daughter, will Dani see Martha’s way the easy way out and is Martha everything she claims to be?

The first thing that I noticed about this book was how real it felt. I don’t have any real-life experience with prisons, even if I only live down the road from one, but Dani certainly felt like a real person and the scenario she was in felt very real too. My only problem with Dani was that I also didn’t really care too much for her either and at times she bugged the life out of me.

With Ms. Ayrton being a Communications Manager for a prisons charity the whole narrative and plot felt authentic and gripping. It was fascinating to witness the inmates and the way they were with one another. You can perfectly visualise what is happening at every step which made the book come to life.

I’ve not read a book set in prison before, only ones with snippets of them, so it was an eye-opener for me. I enjoyed the book and the pace moved pretty steadily and I read it over just a few sittings.

I don’t really know what genre I would put this under as it has parts of numerous genres in it. I was amazed that this is Ms. Ayrton’s debut novel as it was so well structured, written fluidly and the plot held my attention throughout.

About the Author

Lucy Ayrton is Communications Manager of a prisons charity, and much of ONE MORE CHANCE is informed by the people she has met and the time she has spent in prisons, especially on the Holloway Mother and Baby Unit.

She has an MA in Creative Writing from Warwick University, and is a lively presence on the performance poetry scene. She wrote and performed two full-length spoken word shows at the Edinburgh Festival: Lullabies to Make Your Children Cry, recipient of the PBH Best Newcomer Award, and adapted into a pamphlet with Stewed Rhubarb Press.

The Splitting of the Mermaid was a winner of the Ideastap Members Presents: Preview Season and was performed at Underbelly. She also blogs as Lucy In The Pub With Cider, about literature, feminism and baking. Lucy is lives in Oxford. This is her first novel, and was a finalist for the Exeter Novel Award.