Dirty Work
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Hope has everything that money can buy... except happiness. She may be spoilt but Hope's sure that as far as her preoccupied parents are concerned, she's hopeless.
Oksana doesn't even have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought Europe would offer a better life - instead, bought and sold into prostitution, she feels dirty and used.
Then Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable. Their only real chance of escape lies with each other, but how do two teenagers with so little in common find the way...?
A tense, shocking novel - with a hint of hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two teenage girls from vastly different backgrounds alternately narrate this complex, gritty story about an international kidnapping and prostitution ring. Oksana, poor, cold and hungry, is easy prey at 13 when a man comes to her Russian village, promising a good job in London; raped and shamed, she tells her story from a vantage point of two years, in pained flashbacks. A chance meeting on the ferry from France to England acquaints her with Hope, a wealthy 15-year-old, who is returning from a vacation. As Hope and her dad disembark, she discovers Oksana hiding in their van, pleading for help; Hope knows her materialistic parents well enough not to alert them to Oksana's presence. But Hope will soon regret her decision: Natasha's pimp captures both girls, and Hope's nightmare begins. Suggestive rather than graphic, this story is heavy with grim details. The satisfying conclusion, with the protagonists reaching safety, doesn't dispel the realistically depressing atmosphere the British author has labored to build. Ages 12-up.
