So, my rating for this book? I honestly debated a 5-star review, but I am comfortable with a 4-4.5. For me to rate a book 5-stars, the ending has to just blow me away. While this ending was satisfying, it wrapped up just a little too…neatly, for my taste. That being said, there were so many things that I liked about this book. Of course, being that we are dealing with an afterlife, there are slight religious references (heaven and hell) though my heathen self didn’t feel like I was being beat over the head with someone else’s moral compass. This is actually very important to me when it comes to this type of book. After short spells in the Army and as a chef, Emmanuel-Jones became a producer at the BBC, working with the likes of Gordon Ramsay and James Martin. He then launched a marketing agency, helping turn Loyd Grossman sauces, Kettle Chips and Cobra beer into household names, enabling him to realise his dream. They settled in Small Heath in Birmingham, where he was one of nine children living in a small terraced house. Content warnings for: violence, gore, death, murder, betrayal, infanticide, graphic torture and abuse, cannibalism, vomiting, suicide, imprisonment, pedophilia, sexual assault Yet hurdles still exist. Farms are largely passed from generation to generation, making it difficult for outsiders to break into the “closed shop”. “The industry is an old boys’ network, it doesn’t want to let in new blood – whether Defra, the National Farmers’ Union, or Cirencester agricultural college. [The industry is] desperate for diversity, for change, but until we do something about that it’s always going to be a closed shop.”

Why does diversity matter? “Nature tells us that if you don’t have diversity, the species will die off, become weaker. Keeping things to a very exclusive group will eventually lead to problems, that’s a lesson from nature. Diversity means you’re happy and open to new thinking, new ideas.”

The pandemic has been tough for Emmanuel-Jones, who has shielded throughout, receiving his first vaccine earlier this month. Seven years ago, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. A stem cell transplant was “absolutely brutal”, and severely compromised his immune system. “Even before Covid, [winter] would have been brutal for me, I would have ended up in hospital with some sort of infection,” says Emmanuel-Jones, who divides his time between the farm and London, where he receives fortnightly treatment at Guy’s Hospital. A refreshing and unique take on purgatory and the afterlife; savage and vicious but nevertheless full of human carnage, evils and conceits. I would love to talk more about the premise of this one but alas, no, I feel it'd be better for a reader to go into it with minimal info just like I did. Willowbrook is a family affair, with the couple’s five children involved to varying degrees, as well as partners. The two eldest sons, for example, are employed on the farm. Lutfi believes that several barriers prevent people of colour from gaining access to land, particularly inheritance, education and wealth. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, 63, therefore, is one of very few persons of colour involved in farming in the UK. In 1997 he bought 30 acres of land in Devon, realising a lifelong dream of owning a farm.

The way pain and torture was described was basically like South Park's “The Poop That Took A Pee” – just listing a bunch of random gross shit with no depth and a whole lot of repetition. While there were some creative scenes peppered throughout the book (the teeth, the slug, some of the Ocean Giant storyline), an editor (see next bullet) could have helped cut this story down enough that perhaps the few creative moments could outshine that pile of rambling repetitive bullshit. Alas, alas. Which brings me to…Emmanuel-Jones' television career then gave him the capital to buy Higher West Kitcham Farm, between St Giles on the Heath and Lifton just east of Launceston, which he continues to farm to this day. Business Live's South West Business Reporter is William Telford. William has more than a decade's experience reporting on the business scene in Plymouth and the South West. He is based in Plymouth but covers the entire region. Mr Emmanuel-Jones has highlighted the strong divide between urban and rural Britons, which can be "like two separate countries". He said he hopes his work raising awareness of farming and business could help bring the two sides of the country together and encourage urban-dwelling aspirational farmers to get involved. Be aware, there's gonna be some strong opinions here but they are my own. There are a lot of people who absolutely adore this book who are going to continue to adore this book. As a matter of fact I wanted to love this book. But this was a no for me. I don't even want to review this but here we go. The story is fully immersive and you find yourself genuinely invested in the characters, some new and some familiar.