Book review

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club

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This year at Sydney Writers Festival I attended my first TeenCon.

As we filed into the room, volunteers handed each of us a calico bag containing six books. Yes, six. Not three years old, let’s-chuck-‘em-out books, but ones published within the past year, many within the past six months. The first one I read was by Alison Goodman.

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club was already on my radar,
as I love Alison Goodman’s writing.

However, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Descriptions in some reviews, including “Jane Austen meets Cassandra Clare”, sounded to me a lot like a Regency version of Clare’s prequel novels (The Infernal Devices). Instead I found a meticulously researched story with a heroine who is gutsy but consistent in her era.

The protagonist, Lady Helen, understands and complies with the proprieties of the time, believing in the limitations women have been socialised to accept, but though she resists the call of her growing knowledge, she steps up when it counts.

The Dark Days Club is best described as an urban fantasy
in Regency era London.

27074515The Dark Days Club begins in 1812, the second year of the Regency. Lady Helen lives with her aunt and puritanical, oppressive uncle as her parents, the Earl of Hayden and Lady Catherine, died a decade before. Rumours persist that her mother betrayed England to Napoleon.

When Lady Helen attends the palace to be presented before Queen Charlotte with other young ladies of genteel families, she is introduced to Lord Carlston, who reputedly murdered his wife three years past, though it could never be proven. So begins her entrée into the world of the Dark Days Club and the hidden perils from which it protects all of Britain.

Goodman has managed to walk a fine line.

She presents Lady Helen as a product of her age rather than an anachronistic modern feminist, while still portraying her as a strong character who doesn’t shrink from the difficult role she is being called to fulfill. Her initial reticence is a common part of any hero’s or heroine’s journey, serving only to underline her later determination.

26066905The story builds gradually, layer by layer, well-paced and well-crafted, and though this is the first in a series, provides a resolution that doesn’t leave the reader hanging.

This isn’t just a story with a Regency backdrop. Neither is it a Gothic novel, though it contains some Gothic elements. It’s a story of a Regency young woman, faced with secrets and responsibilities she’d rather not have, coming to terms with who she is in a society that has little tolerance for female non-conformity.

It’s also got some kick-ass action scenes.

I had high hopes for Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ll be watching out for the second instalment, The Dark Days Pact, in January 2017.

Details
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club
Angus & Robertson
ISBN: 9780732296094)
Pub: Dec 2015

Links
Alison Goodman’s webpage

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A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

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Later this year a movie will be released of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls.

I’m keen to see the movie, but reluctant at the same time.

Anybody who loves a book will know the feeling; excitement at seeing a great story brought to life, but anxious at the thought it could be ruined.

The trailer looks hopeful.

The story centres on Conor, who lives with his mother who has cancer. Her illness has made Conor feel isolated and alone, and he has been plagued with a recurring nightmare of darkness and screaming.

One night after midnight a voice calls to him outside his window. It’s the huge willow tree from the graveyard of the church he can see from his room, terrifying and stern, who insists it will come back and tell him three stories, and then Conor must tell his story to the tree. The yew does as it promises, each time returning after midnight. 

The consequences of the yew’s visits to Conor
grow more and more severe.

Ultimately, it leads him to confront his deepest fears.

9781406311525A Monster Calls has a sad history. In an Author’s Note at the beginning of the book, Ness explains that the premise of the book was conceived by author Siobhan Dowd, along with the characters and the beginning. It would have been her fifth book. “What she didn’t have,” he says, “unfortunately, was time.” What he doesn’t mention in his note is that she had cancer.

However, he was asked to turn her beginning into a book. He felt like he’d “been handed a baton, like a particularly fine writer has handed me her story and said,

‘Go. Run with it. Make trouble.’

“So that’s what I tried to do.”

He had only a single guideline: “to write a book I think Siobhan would have liked. No other criteria could really matter.”

He certainly wrote a book a many people like. Ness and the illustrator Jim Kay won the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals for writing and illustration, as well the British Children’s Book of the Year and a swag of other awards. I’d include it on any list of the best books for pre-teens/teenagers, and would recommend it to most adults. It’s a deceptively simple story, with a huge depth of psychological and emotional sophistication.

Film is a very different media to print, but I hope the underlying complexity, the confusion, grief, fear, love and alienation that Conor deals with manages to be portrayed in the film.

The monster paused again.
You really aren’t afraid, are you?
“No,” Conor said. “Not of you, anyway.”
The monster narrowed its eyes.
You will be, it said. Before the end.

Details
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Candlewick Press/Walker Books
ISBN 1406311529
Pub: May 2011

Links
Patrick Ness’s website
Second trailer for the A Monster Calls movie

Two Wolves – which will you feed?

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Released as “On the Run” in the US

Ben Silver is home with his little sister one afternoon when the cops show up looking for his parents. After they leave, his mum and 19392551dad arrive and bundle them in the car, supposedly taking them on a spontaneous ‘holiday’.  Ben finds it hard to believe the two things aren’t linked.

So begins a tale of tension, suspicion and fear. Why did they leave so fast, without clothes or food? Why do his parents take Ben and his sister, Olive, to a filthy cabin in the middle of nowhere?

What’s in the bag his father
tries to hide?

Two Wolves is a novel at the lower end of the YA bracket that tackles some difficult questions. Parents are supposed to look after you, but what if other things are more important to them? What if they neglect you, or worse? What if they betray you? What if you come from a family who do things that are wrong? Does that mean you’ll be just like them?

Tristan Bancks handles these and other questions with skill. While his other books have lighter subjects and tones, Two Wolves captures the confusion, loneliness and longing of Ben as he tries to make sense of what’s happening to him and his family.

The title is taken from a story in the pages of Ben’s grandfather’s almost-empty journal, which is printed as a brief preface before the first chapter. In this version of the old story, a man tells his grandson that inside all of us a battle rages between two wolves.

“One wolf is bad – pride, envy, jealousy, greed, guilt, self-pity.
The other wolf is good – kindness, hope, love, service, truth, humility.”

23310747When the child asks who will win, the grandfather answers, “The one you feed”.

The conclusion to the novel isn’t a tidy, neat, Disney happily-ever-after, but it’s a satisfying resolution that stays true to the characters and story, while still allowing the reader to ask themselves, “What would I do?”

Highly recommended, for readers from late primary school up.

 

 

Details
Two Wolves by Tristan Bancks (On the Run in US)
Random House Australia
ISBN: 9780857982032
Published: March 2014

Links
Tristan Bancks website: http://www.tristanbancks.com

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Zeroes – What’s your superpower?

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If you had a supernatural ability, what would it be?
Not what you’d like it to be, but what it would be?

The fifteen-year-olds in Zeroes didn’t get to choose their abilities. While their powers let them do things others can’t, not all the effects are easy to live with. Ethan (nicknamed Scam), for instance, has a ‘voice’ that talks its way into getting anything he wants when he lets it take over, but it doesn’t take consequences into account. This time, it ends up getting him involved with gangsters and bank robbers, and the police don’t buy his lame explanations.

Though he hasn’t spoken to them since his temper got the better of him last summer, his fellow Zeroes come to his rescue. The fallout of Scam’s interference is the discovery of a new Zero, and she wants them to help find her father.

They’ll be risking more than their group. They’ll be risking their lives.

24756394Zeroes is a young adult novel by three well-established authors, Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. It’s fast-paced action, each chapter from the perspective of one the six Zeroes characters, though all written in third person. Though each author wrote from the perspective of two characters, they blend seamlessly.

What holds the narrative together is not just the action but the relationships. All is not well among the Zeroes. They’re a diverse bunch with little in common other than their possession of a strange ability. There’s dissent, there’s friction, there’s sexual tension, all of which provide conflict and interesting places for the characters to go.

On the other hand, around half-way through the book I found myself looking for other things to read. I lost interest for a while; I didn’t feel like finishing it. This was in spite of an excellent plot with plenty of menace to keep the pages turning. It had all the right ingredients, and I really wanted to love this book.

Why wasn’t I engrossed?

After a little thought, the answer was obvious. I didn’t like the Zeroes very much. They’re interesting, complex, well thought out, and definitely flawed as all good characters should be. They’re well written. I just didn’t enjoy being with them. The suspense and ‘need to know’ were outweighed for a while by the need for space away from the characters, the way you sometimes need space away from friends who are irritating you.

If I was a newly discovered Zero they’d asked to join their group, I wouldn’t be keen. They mean well – mostly – but they’re pains in the bum. They’re a smorgasbord of self focus, arrogance, resentment and anger, and even Flicker, the mild-mannered blind girl who can see through other’s eyes, doesn’t have much compassion for her twin sister when their relationship is encroached upon by another Zero.

24885636It was also difficult to get a clear picture of the Zero, Nathan. The others call him Glorious Leader, but it was hard for me to get a handle on the nature of his power. We know it has to do with the attention of crowds, but I found it nebulous until close to the end of the book where we get a small demonstration. His nickname, Bellwether, didn’t help. I’d heard the term but had no idea what it was. I probably should have bitten the bullet and just looked it up, but I was reading a hard copy and e-reading has made me quite lazy. (I eventually looked it up, and it made more sense of Nathan’s power.)

Overall, Zeroes has a great premise, is well-written, fast-paced with a compelling plot, and full of complex, interesting characters. Eventually I picked it backed up again and finished it. The plot brought me back and I wanted to know what happened, specifically to the new girl, Mob. I liked her the most – though she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the Zeroes superpowered shed.

Though I didn’t love Zeroes as much as I wanted to, it’s still a good book. The writing is great, and it certainly wasn’t a book I could leave unfinished indefinitely. I’ll be reading later books in the series, but the events in this one have changed its characters. Hopefully that means they’ll be less irritating.

Details

Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, & Deborah Biancotti
Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781925266955
Published: September 2015

Links

Scott Westerfeld’s webpage
Margo Lanagan’s webpage (called Among Amid While)
Deborah Biancotti’s webpage

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Tower of Thorns, by Juliet Marillier

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A wailing monster, a cursed land and a lady with secrets.

Add a bristling healer and her hulky companion with pasts that haunt them, and you have an enthralling story that sweeps you into its world of fey and mystery.

22567177Blackthorn is a healer and wise woman who was rescued from a death sentence by one of the fey. The conditions of her reprieve included not seeking vengeance against the chieftain who unjustly imprisoned her. With another of the prisoners, Grim, as friend and companion, she has built a new life in Dalraida.

When the Lady Geiléis arrives seeking help from the Dalraidan prince, it is to Blackthorn they turn. A monster has taken up residence in an old tower surrounded by impenetrable thorns on the lady’s lands. It howls from dawn to dusk and has cast a blight upon the whole land.

At the same time an old friend emerges with a tempting offer for Blackthorn, to bring her old tormentor, Mathuin the chieftain, to justice. She plans to go the lady’s lands and deal with the monster, then slip away from Grim and travel south to help in Mathuin’s trial. Once at Lady Geiléis’ lands, though, it becomes clear the lady and her servants are hiding something.

Tower of Thorns works as a stand-alone novel, but readers of the first book in the Blackthorn & Grim series, Dreamer’s Pool, will be eager for this second offering.

One of the strengths of these novels is the complexity
of the title characters.

They are defined by the things they have in common; their traumatic pasts that are being slowly revealed to each other and the reader, their time in Mathuin’s prison where they occupied opposite cells while enduring deprivation and abuse, and their understanding of the brokenness of one another.  Yet they also provide a contrast for one another.

Blackthorn is well-named. She’s prickly, bitter and prone to fits of temper, finding it difficult to be around other people for long periods. She’s also assertive,  as Lady Geiléis discovers once they are back on her land.

“Once Blackthorn decided to take the reins, it seemed she was blind to anything that might stand in her way.”

However, even though she finds the caring side of her healing work exhausting, she does it well. She sees herself with little to give emotionally but is so attuned to others that she can’t help empathizing and supporting them when they’re in need. Though she’s been scarred by her life, at the core she’s decent and good and does what she believes is right.

Grim sees himself with little to give in general, in spite of being able to turn his hand to anything from thatching and growing vegetables to training others in use of weapons. Though they conduct their relationship as companions, his devotion to Blackthorn never wavers. Where her focus stays on making Mathuin pay for his crimes, Grim’s is on Blackthorn and doing all his power to protect and provide for her. Discovering more of his story and who he his in Tower of Thorns was especially welcome.

17305016It isn’t easy to get stories about people with post-traumatic stress right, let alone in the context of medieval Ireland where old magic and the fey are forces to be reckoned with. Blackthorn and Grim have different ways of dealing with the traumas of their pasts, but each is authentic and rings true in the context of the time. The descriptions of Grim’s flashbacks and physical symptoms are particularly well done.

Tower of Thorns is told from three points of view; Blackthorn’s and Grim’s, both using first person, and the third from the perspective of Lady Geiléis in third person. Though the narrative style changes, it works well. Marillier’s prose flows, often lyrical, always grounded.

Not only does it feel as though this medieval Ireland of fey magic is real, but it should be real.

Though evil is there just as it is in our world, there is also a beauty and wonder in creation that has been lost for most of us. Perhaps books like this can challenge us to appreciate what we have and strive to preserve the beauty and natural wonders around us.

As I said when reviewing Raven Flight, I’ve been a keen reader of Juliet Marillier’s books since her first book, Daughter of the Forest, was published, so I tend to be well-disposed towards her books when I pick them up. So far I haven’t been disappointed. I’m already looking forward to the next in the Blackthorn & Grim series.

* I received an ARC from the author for review.

 Details
Tower of Thorns  by Juliet Marillier
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9780451466990
Published: 3 October, 2015

Links
Juliet Marillier’s Website
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The Beast’s Garden, by Kate Forsyth

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What does a lark and a lion have to do with Nazi intelligence and German resistance in World War II?

23702432A hint: it involves a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Still not sure? Stay with me and all shall become clear.

A new Kate Forsyth novel is always something to look forward to, whether it’s an adult or children’s novel. I think this one, though, is her best yet. The Beast’s Garden is a compelling story of the outrage, fear and courage of a young woman and her friends in Berlin working against the all-powerful Nazi regime.

We first meet nineteen year old Ava on the Night of Broken Glass, when co-ordinated attacks were carried out against Jews and their property throughout Germany and Austria in November 1938. From the first line we know there will be two opposing forces in Ava’s life:

Ava fell in love the night the Nazis first showed their true faces to the world.

Against the instructions of her father she leaves the safety of her home to seek out the Jewish Feidlers, who have been like a second family to her. On the way she runs into a Nazi officer, Leo, and though she hates all the Nazis stand for, she can’t forget him. It’s an encounter that changes both their lives.

Life gets more difficult as she tries to help the Feidlers and work against the Nazis. Leo works in the Abwehr, the Intelligence arm of Nazi command, and he provides some protection, but how can she keep her illicit activities secret from him? But then she discovers he abhors what is happening as much as she does, as do others in the Abwehr. They’re even plotting against Hitler. Can they succeed without being discovered and executed?

This isn’t a leisurely read; it’s compelling. I read it over a few days because I made myself put it away, do other things and read lighter books. The immersion in wartime Berlin was making me way too anxious to be able to sleep.

KFquoeIt’s also very real. Kate Forsyth’s research is extensive and her attention to detail is meticulous. Apart from Ava, Leo, their families and the Feidler family, everyone mentioned in the book is a real person, and the story is told within real events. The reality of such evil, the casual sadism and disregard for human life the people there faced every day is more than disturbing.

I knew very little of the German resistance before reading this book. I knew little more about plots to kill Hitler, most of it from watching the movie Valkyre. I knew virtually nothing about the Abwehr, or that some Jewish and other ‘undesirable’ people survived, homeless and hiding, in Berlin. Reading The Beast’s Garden I learned about these things and a lot more, and have been prompted to read more widely about them.

While I was reading, though, I didn’t realise how much I was learning. I was swept away by the story.

So, finally, what’s this about a lark and a lion? Kate is well known for her expertise in the lore of fairy tales (she has a doctorate in the field) and cites a Grimm Brothers tale called The Singing, Springing Lark as a favourite. It’s an extended version of Beauty and the Beast with a heroine with more action and agency than the well-known, popularised-by-Disney version. In the Grimm tale, the heroine’s father tries to capture a lark from the land of the ‘beast’, which in this version is a lion, who is an enchanted prince.

Berlin_Tiergarten_Siegessäule_Luftansicht

TIERGARTEN, Berlin. Image By beedubz (Own work) https://goo.gl/LiuJHp

This tale provides the basic form of the The Beast’s Garden, with Leo (of course) being the lion beast who spares the life of Ava’s father, and she finds he is not such a beast at all. There is much more to the story, but – spoilers.

The title works on a number of levels which I’ll leave for you to discover, but I love that much of the novel revolves around the Tiergarten, the largest urban park in Berlin, which translates as ‘animal garden’ or ‘beast garden’. There was a small zoo at one end, but most of it was trees, paths and statues. Much of it was destroyed during bombings, and after the war it was used to grow food for a while.

This is one of those books that is not only hard to put down, but when you’ve finished you know your life has been enriched. The main characters in the novel may be fictional, but they provide a window into the lives of people who lived in the capital of Nazi power in one of the darkest times of modern European history. As a reader the question of whether you’d be able to be as courageous in the same circumstances is hard to avoid. Perhaps it’s a timely reminder to be active and outspoken about the injustices we see in our own time and place.

* I received an e-copy of this book for review through NetgalleyNetgalley badge

Details
The Beast’s Garden by Kate Forsyth
Random House Australia
ISBN: 9780857980403
Published: 3 August 2015

17283570

by Kate Forsyth

17618419

Other historical novels

Links
Kate Forsyth’s webpage
Images by Sergey Larenkov:
-Merged images from 1945 and today: brilliant. (Towards the bottom includes the taking of Berlin, one of the Tiergarten.)

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Cloudwish, by Fiona Wood

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Wishes aren’t real. Are they?

Vân Uoc knows the score. She’s a scholarship kid in an exclusive school where most of the other kids were born with silver spoons in their mouths. She’s under no illusion about fitting into the designer-clothes-and-huge-house set, but it hasn’t prevented her crushing on A-lister and rowing star Billy Gardiner.

24248906When a creative writing teacher hands around a box of items as prompts, Vân Uoc picks out a little glass tube with the word ‘wish’ on a slip of paper inside. Her wish? For Billy Gardiner to prefer her to everyone else. Afterwards she can’t find the glass tube, and Billy takes notice of her for the first time. Coincidence – isn’t it?

Though Cloudwish begins whimsically, the struggles Vân Uoc experiences between home and school feel very real. Being the only daughter of Vietnamese refugees, she feels the full weight of her parents’ expectations and the responsibility of being worthy of all the terrors they suffered and sacrifices they made so she could have a better life. Her day-to-day world is one of restriction and enforced study in their housing commission flat, carving out her small freedoms by bending the truth in translation to her barely-English-speaking parents and rationalising her dishonesty.

She doesn’t want anyone at school to know any of that, of course. She’s always tried to fly under the rader; life is easier if she’s invisible. With Billy’s sudden attention comes an unwelcome spotlight, and a few girls in particular aren’t too happy to see Billy’s affection straying outside home turf.

Billy really seems to like her, though, just for herself. She doesn’t believe wishes are real, but how else could this have happened? And can she live with that, if he hasn’t really chosen it?

Cloudwish is the story of a girl caught in the tension between two cultures. Fiona Wood immerses us in Vân Uoc’s world and we can’t help but feel the pressure from her parents and the otherness she experiences at school. The book begins with a quote from Alice Walker at Sydney Writers’ Festival:

I recognised myself in Jane Eyre. It amazed me how many white people can’t read themselves in black characters. I didn’t feel any separation between me and Jane. We were tight.

I love this quote and find it puzzling at the same time. The magical thing about stories is that they enable us to become other people, to understand who they are from the inside, to ‘look out through other eyes’ as Neil Gaiman has said. A good book is a leveller, making us all see from the same perspective, and I find it incredibly sad that some people have a racial barrier stopping that process.

The quote is perfect, though, because Jane Eyre is Vân Uoc’s hero and muse. “What would Jane do?” is a refrain throughout the story, and lovers of Charlotte Bronte’s classic will love the way Wood weaves snippets into Cloudwish.

While Vân Uoc seeks to be as brave as Jane, she suffers from the insecurities endemic in young women – or women in general – and many girls will identify with her doubts when the most popular boy at school pursues her. Is it a set-up? A joke? If not, it must be the wish.

Though most of the novel is written in third person, it perfectly fits the voice of its lead character. It’s a lovely touch that her name, Vân Uoc, means ‘cloudwish’ in Vietnamese.

I can’t help comparing Cloudwish with Looking for Alibrandi in the way it presents the life of a second generation Australian living between cultures. Reading it doesn’t feel like an education, only a great story, but afterwards I realised I understood a lot more than I had before I read it.

That’s a great book.

* I received an e-copy of this book for review through Netgalley

Details
Cloudwish by Fiona WoodNetgalley badge
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9781743533123
Published: 1 Sept, 2015

Links
Fiona Wood’s website

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The Harvest by Chuck Wendig

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The Harvest* is Chuck Wendig’s third instalment in his Heartland series. If you haven’t read the first book, Under an Empyrean Sky or the second Blightborn, you might want to check out the links to my reviews of those, as there are spoilers to the first two books below.

25122002Cael’s crew has come a long way since we first met them on board the Betty, racing Boyland’s crew to a scavenging site. At the end of Blightborn they’ve been scattered and we left Cael falling to earth from the flotilla Saranyu, sabotaged by the Sleeping Dogs. The beginning of Harvest shows us how his Blight rescues him, cushioning his fall and enabling Esther (aka the Maize Witch) to wrap him into a living cocoon to enable him to heal. Wanda decides she wants to become one of the Blightborn to be like Cael, so Esther infects her with the Blight, thus initiating the transformation of her character for the rest of the book.

We also find that Lane is in charge of the settlement that has sprung up in the ruins of the fallen flotilla, while Rigo is scratching out a meager existence as a beggar in a town on the border of the Heartland. Gwen and Boyland, with the others who escaped the flotilla with them, are hiding on a small farm, living on what they can grow from Balastair’s seeds. It’s a quiet existence that’s destined not to last.

The Empyrean is making its own plans. A new weaponized flotilla is under construction in secret, and a young Empyrean woman has spent the time since the fall of the Saranyu flotilla training a corps of killers. It’s her goal to take back the remains of the Saranyu and avenge all who fell with it – and that means eliminating Cael, Gwen, and all their friends.

17817631The Heartland series is an action packed ride, and The Harvest doesn’t disappoint. The trilogy starts with a focus on Cael, his three friends and his nemesis, Boyland, in the first book, in the small town of Boxelder, and gradually expands to encompass more people, the wider Heartland and the Empyrean flotillas and society. In dystopic tradition, it’s a story of the oppressed rising up against a privileged elite, and it’s heroes are engaging, likable and flawed.

As a conclusion to the series, The Harvest plays out the implications of the Empyrean focus on genetically modified aggressive corn and of the Blight,  and their creator’s role in the Empyrean-Heartland system. Each character is well developed across the trilogy, even some of the minor ones, each experience and choice having its impact, so it’s interesting to look back from the end of The Harvest to see how far Wendig has brought them.

20483018There weren’t many negatives for me, but one is that I’d hoped to discover by the end of the series exactly why the Empyrean elite chose to live in floating cities, given the logistical problems and huge energy consumption that would entail, not to mention the very real threat of disaster. Unfortunately no explanation was ever given. The only other thing was that I felt the climax and resolution in The Harvest is rushed. There’s a final confrontation, then the moment arrives which will change the lives of every Empyrean citizen and Heartlander forever – and it cuts to an epilogue. As epilogues go its a nice touch, but I was a bit peeved not to see the effects happen, or at least start to happen, and only get a scene many years down the track.

Overall it has lots of elements to enjoy, including aggressive crops, cyborg technology, hoverboats on land and human/plant genetic melding to name a few. It also has doses of what it means to be a friend or be in love and how our choices and experiences impact on our relationships.  The age-old story of exploitation of the oppressed by the powerful remains relevant more than ever with western society’s growing gap between the rich and poor and the continuing poverty in so much of the rest of the world.

The Heartland Trilogy is a good sci-fi action read and The Harvest generally finishes it off well – though if there’s ever a movie, I hope there’s a more satisfying final scene.

*I received an e-copy of this book for review through Netgalley

Netgalley badgeDetails
The Harvest: The Heartland Trilogy 3  by Chuck Wendig
Skyscape
ISBN: 978-1477830024
Published:  14 July, 2015

Links:
Under an Empyrean Sky : Heartland 1
Blightborn: Heartland 2
Links: terribleminds - Chuck Wendig’s website