Wednesday 19 October 2011

TEEN: Ashes - Ilsa J Bick

Release Date: 07/10/11

BOOK BLURB:

Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired a superhuman sense) while others for the worse (those who acquired a taste for human flesh). Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the zombies that are on the hunt, Alex meets up with Tom - an Army veteran who escaped one war only to find something worse at home - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse. This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to find food, shelter, while fighting off the 'Changed' and those desperate to stay alive. A tense and involving adventure with shocks and sudden plot twists that will keep teen and adult readers gripped.


REVIEW:

The concept of this title was more than intriguing to me and whilst I liked the lead character and the first part of the story, the author seemed to lose cohesion as well as believability by the second part of the title, almost as if it had been well planned and required extending to turn it into a full novel. It does have some clever twists, some interesting notions but with the loss of cohesion alongside a mishmash of characters I soon found it hard to continue reading in any seriousness.

All in this was a great shame to be honest but with this being the first part in a trilogy it is balanced on a fine edge of either going into the realm of ridiculous or whether the author can pull it back. I’ll wait and see but if it doesn’t improve I’ll leave the third well enough alone.

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