This review was written in that dim corridor of days between the 22nd and 28th of October, 2025 — a week blurred by the hiss of oxygen and the slow drip of IV lines at Bellona Nursing Home & Diagnostic Centre Pvt. Ltd. I was then a reluctant guest of illness, recovering from an infection that had seized both lungs and kidneys. Forgive, therefore, the infrequent tremor in my language; it bears the soft delirium of painkillers and the fragile clarity of a mind half-dreaming between fever and thought. But Slime does that annoying, delightful thing some tales do — it pretends to be campy horror and then quietly slips a mirror into your hands.
This one is Steel at her gentlest and most quietly devastating. Blue isn’t loud; it doesn’t come marching in with grand gestures. Instead, it slips into your heart like a cold winter morning followed by unexpected sunlight.
Ginny Carter, a former TV journalist, is wandering through life in a haze of grief after losing her husband and son. Steel writes her with a delicate restraint — the kind of sorrow that isn’t theatrical, just bone-deep and silent.
Ginny moves through the world like a shadow until she meets Blue, a homeless boy whose trauma mirrors her own in a heartbreaking, asymmetrical way.
Their connection is tender, cautious — two wounded souls circling each other, trying not to break the fragile air between them.
Steel resists the urge to romanticise their bond; instead, she focuses on the messy, imperfect work of trust-building. Ginny becomes a guardian, a mentor, a lifeline — not out of saviourism, but out of recognition. Blue’s trauma is revealed slowly, with Steel handling the darker elements with remarkable sensitivity.
The novel is about chosen family, but also about the ethics of care.
What do we owe someone we love?
How do we carry their pain without drowning in it?
Steel navigates these questions with emotional intelligence. When tragedy hits — because in a Steel novel it always does — it feels brutally real. Yet, she guides the story toward resilience rather than despair.
The ending doesn’t feel neat; it feels honest.
Blue stays with you like a bruise that turns into a memory — painful, but strangely luminous.