Reviews

As a huge fan of Claire North, I was super excited to read her newest novel. Set in a future, post-apocalyptic age, this is the story of Kadri, AKA Ven who ends up working for The Brotherhood, a faction who wishes to bring back the knowledge if the past deemed heretical by The Temple. Knowledge that includes bioweapons, tanks, and other weapons of war. The Council is the political arm that tries to hold everything in balance. But humans rarely change and power is everything.

Although this is a wonderfully written commentary on the trajectory our current political and socio-economic is on and speculates if we will ever learn from our carelessness, I was disappointed that it contained none of the supernatural elements that I have grown to love in Claire North’s writings. However, as a post-apocalyptic political thriller, she nailed it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this free digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

colleen987's review against another edition

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5.0

With Thanks to Claire North and Orbit for an Advanced Readers copy of this book.

4.5*

This is my second Claire North book and she has certainly moved quite high on my list of authors to follow.

To start with we get the usual quirky writing style that I grew to love in Harry August, and a cast of intriguing characters to sink our tooth into as the book meanders forward. It is always nothing like I thought it would be, I expected cli-fi dystopian survival... which I guess it is but that isn't the purpose of the book. The usual theme of group or survivors must learn to live and conquer are missing - this is almost a plea for harmony. It's a very humbling and thought provoking novel that questions our need to even be on earth, and since we find ourselves here what is our proper place in the environmental hierarchy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I'm glad I picked it up on a whim and a pretty cover.