I instantly fell in love with our main character Bel and then fell in love with our secondary characters Micah the open ended jailbird, Tash the best friend who tells it like it is and Eli the newly hot next door neighbour. Hayley Larence has such a unique writing style that instantly draws you into the story and snatches your heart and doesn't let go until the last tear filled moment. But will it all be to late for Micah and his friends, after all it is death row? But things don't go to plan while she is in Thailand and suddenly she realises that she needs to fight more than ever for the rights of prisoners overseas. Suddenly they become quite close and Bel decides to travel over to Thailand to suprise Micah with her recently returned neighbour, who has been over in Thailand for the last year on exchange and has returned very hot. Few letters back and forth enough to get a decent mark for the assignment but as they progress with their letter writing Bel discovers the horrible conditions that Australian prisoners overseas are recieving and the lack of representation that they receive when they have been arrested and in the following months/years. It started out at a simple assignment just right. For a school legal assignment Bel had to chose a cause and work with it, so she chose to write to an Australian inmate on death row in Bang Kwang Prison in Thailand named Micah. Thoughts on the book: Inside the Tiger is the debut novel from Hayley Lawrence which centres around 17 year old Bel, a private school girl whose dad is a politician and a major campaigner against prisoners being handed down less than acceptable sentences after his wife's (Bel's mother's) killer walking free after a short sentence.

Inside the Tiger by Hayley Lawrence