Bombshell by name and bombshell by nature! This is an explosive book with three dimensional characters and a great plot. It is also an informative book which is set on the island of Corsica with its beauty and its conflicts. I wasn’t aware of much of Corsican history and struggles but this story has intrigued me and made me want to learn more. Severine, the privileged only child of a French politician and American publisher is a dilettante who is kidnapped by a new, small terrorist organisation. She becomes involved with them, initially for her own safety and gain but after long periods of enlightenment she begins to see that joining them could be the next chapter in her life. The writing is superb and the story unfolds at a satisfying pace. I think this book would be a good book to read in a book club as I’m sure it will illicit a good discussion.

During a scorching Corsican summer in 1993, seventeen-year-old French-American Séverine is amusing herself by toying with boys' affections and dreaming of her future career as an actress: 'So far, she'd taken the virginities of four boys... She liked the idea of being never-forgotten, a landmark. She liked the feverish tremors they emitted when she ignored them in the hallway afterwards.' But Séverine is the daughter of a politician, and her summer takes an unexpected turn when she is kidnapped by a radical splinter group fighting for Corsican independence from the French mainland, Soffiu di Libertà. The three men who take her, however, soon realise they have bitten off more than they can chew; Séverine is not an easy captive. Desperate for entertainment in their base in the middle of the maquis (wild shrubland), she starts avidly reading both Franz Fanon's Les damnés de la terre [The Wretched of the Earth] and a biography of Jane Fonda, who advocated for peace in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Séverine is enthralled by both Fanon's postcolonial theory ('Fanon was saying [violence] was a coping mechanism, a way to feel independent and human in the face of degradation') and Fonda's style: 'pouty and gorgeous in a suede trench coat and shag haircut, handcuffed, radiating a sensuality unsuitable for the occasion of arrest'. Séverine's transformation into the militant face of Soffiu di Libertà is so compelling because Darrow Farr refuses to make it simple. Yes, she falls for Bruno, the leader of the three men, but Bruno is a bookish theorist who prefers to think about revolutionary violence rather than enact it. Yes, she's much more interested in becoming a guerrilla star in black eyeliner than in the hard work of building a new society, but she also enjoys engaging her intellect for the first time as she reads Fanon, Marx and Guevara. She's an incredibly satisfying protagonist because she doesn't fit our ideas about teenage girls as vulnerable and victimised; instead, she wreaks havoc on others. The Bombshell manages something difficult that I'm increasingly seeking out in fiction. It has a serious core but a real lightness of tone, a jauntiness to it that fits Séverine's devil-may-care attitude to setting up bombings. Farr never forgets that there are real social and political questions behind Séverine's manipulation of Soffiu di Libertà, but she lets the reader engage with them on their own terms rather than trying to put forward a message, or forcing Séverine to be either a brainwashed object of pity or a heartless cow. The perfect beach read for the anarchist at heart. 4.5 stars.

The Bombshell by Darrow Farr is an audacious debut, equal parts coming-of-age chaos, political thriller, and razor-sharp character study. Set in Corsica in 1993, the novel introduces us to Séverine, a seventeen-year-old who dreams of Hollywood stardom and finds herself - quite literally - kidnapped into a revolution. What begins as a hostage situation quickly mutates into something murkier: Séverine becomes an active participant in the political cause of her captors, but the novel never offers easy answers as to why. Is it love? Belief? The lure of attention? All of the above? This is a propulsive, entertaining read that somehow manages to be both high-stakes and deeply personal. The revolutionary plot, complete with bombings, propaganda, and idealistic manifestos, runs parallel to Séverine’s own transformation - from a fame-hungry teen to a would-be political figurehead. It’s that duality that makes the book shine: underneath the suspense and tension is the story of a teenager navigating identity, desire, and power, armed with the confidence and delusion only youth can grant. Farr’s commentary on performative activism is especially sharp. While the initial militants are driven by ideology, Séverine’s motives are tangled - she’s performing for love, for notoriety, for a chance to matter. And yet, she remains oddly sympathetic. She knows her strengths and how to use them, manipulating the people around her with the kind of sensual, calculating force that’s as thrilling as it is unsettling. Makes you think about the world we live in today, and how extremely easy it is to find people shouting their convictions to the world and amassing followings without much substance to back it all up. The pacing is excellent! Even the heavier political conversations are electrified by the characters’ urgency and youthful intensity. The writing itself is incredibly rewarding without calling attention to itself - confident, clear, and cinematic in scope. If anything, it's the ending that left me wanting more. The final section, set twenty years after the events of that fateful summer, offers fascinating perspective but felt underdeveloped - more like a narrative device than a fully integrated conclusion. Still, it’s a small quibble for a novel that held me captive (pun intended) from the first page. This is a bold, clever, and confident debut. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This has potential but not for me, I was enjoying it up to a point but read 30% and by then I was done. It was slightly repetative and the fact it's about terrorism I just couldn't inspire an interest.