Beautifully written and impossible not to savour, ‘Baby’ follows the story of Netty, a woman married to a tyrant of a husband as a teenager in the 1920s. J.K. Accinni explores the different facets of human nature, contrasting the caring, nurturing and loving qualities of Netty with the cruel, ruthless and preying nature of her husband and his cronies.

Having escaped her husband’s clutches, Netty works hard to make a living from her parents’ old farm. She is helped in her efforts by a creature she calls Baby, and who she finds in the woods and nurtures back to health. Baby is not of this world, having been sent to Earth on a mission to improve and assist the planet. But is shocked by the depravity the human race is capable of. Netty’s life changes completely after her meeting and adopting of Baby, and she accepts the subsequent changes to herself and her crops as miracles from God.

Her journey fascinated and gripped me to the very end, and ‘Baby’ is not only great historical fiction, but also excellent science fiction as well as a bleak look at humanity and the effects of our actions on the world around us and each other. Yet ‘Baby’ is all too plausible and very, very chilling. J.K Accinni has not flinched from her observations of the human race and this is a book that needs to be read, thought about and discussed - at length.