This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

Interesting juxtaposition between the real, albeit fictional world, and the digital realm of the young. A thoughtfully written concept of the ends people go to getting what they want.

Glen Haybittle's writing is excellent and I enjoyed reading Scorched Earth. The story, set in London, moves between three characters who influence each other's lives while never actually meeting.

In his youth, Nick Swallow and his friend David form a band called Orfee modeled after David Bowie. With a genuine joy in wearing makeup and appearing outlandish they manage to achieve success until their friendship goes awry and the band breaks up.

Sam is a 13-yr old boy who is constantly bullied at school especially when he befriends a new student who is a Syrian refuge. Sam's two passions that keep him grounded are his daily visits to his grandmother, a former ballerina now in the early stages of dementia: and his emulation of Nick Swallow, who he tries to imitate as he learns the bass guitar.

Kate, a militant environmentalist, is the young adult daughter of Nick. Nick has recently learned of Kate's existence during a chance meeting with his old girlfriend. Kate has left home and Nick enters a virtual world that she frequents so that he can learn of her whereabouts in the real world.

Perhaps because I'm older I didn't relate to the virtual world as much as younger readers would. Still, Haybittle brings everything together nicely. I found the ending poignant and an excellent read.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and appreciate having had the opportunity to read it.

This book was, odd. I really enjoyed the first couple of chapters. The idea for this book really jumped out at me and is why I wanted to read it in the first place. I love the idea of people being affected by the actions or presence of others despite having never met them. The writing was beautiful and I was sucked into the character's story and found myself empathizing with him. When the pov switched I was still just as invested until maybe 3 chapters into the new section. Everything started to feel disjointed and almost forced. There felt like a lot of unnecessary fixation on sex and the comments made by Nick felt very odd. Despite this I tried to keep an open mind, the writing remained beautiful and I was still enjoying myself. About halfway through this section though, everything felt repetitive and tired, I found myself skimming through paragraphs and overall not enjoying myself. I really wanted to like this book and I think that this author has a lot of skill in terms of writing but this book just wasn't for me. I think that because I went into this book with an idea of what it was going to be like, and it having not been what I had imagined, I was not as interested as I could have been otherwise.