Good Read
Lauren Moyneux curls up with a good book to review some of the latest best sellers
The Three
Sarah Lotz
TOP TIP: The conspiracy and the way in which details are relayed provides a riveting piece of work that is deeply unsettling, at times humorous, at times sorrowful, but ultimately wildly entertaining.
The Three tells the story of Black Thursday, the day that four passenger planes miraculously fall out of the sky and crash at almost exactly the same moment, at four different points across the globe. The crashes leave only four survivors. Three are children who seem surprisingly unhurt despite having been involved in these dramatic air traffic accidents, but they are not left entirely unchanged. The fourth survivor is a born-again Christian, Pamela May Donald, who lives just long enough to record a thought-provoking message on her phone. The message is a warning.
Lotz’s storytelling technique is unlike anything I have seen in a long while. Creating the intriguing character of Elspeth Martins, an investigative journalist, we actually gain our information regarding the crashes and the global aftermath from her book, Black Thursday: From Crash to Conspiracy – a fictional piece of work disguised as non-fiction which is published in its entirety within The Three. In working within two key narrative frames Lotz creates an interesting dynamic, the story seamlessly seeps through, leaving you awake at night trying to figure it all out, wondering if something like this could actually happen in reality.
The plot is composed with rich storytelling, used masterfully to create a gripping and enthralling sci-fi/fantasy mystery. Horror elements leave creepy imagery lingering on the mind and information is provided through interviews and eyewitness accounts, transcripts of voice recordings and radio shows, journal and diary entries as well as documented conversations.
Eve of Man
Giovanna & Tom Fletcher
TOP TIP: Wonderfully creative, well thought-out and beautifully executed, this is definitely one to add to the bookshelf.
The world is a mess and the threat of the end of the human race looms, as pink blankets stop being wrapped around newborns. No girls are born, only boys. And not just for one peculiar day, but for an astounding 50-year period. The relationship between men and women drastically shifts as science steps in to try and save the human race.
Then a girl is born, without the aid of science or technology, simply made by two people in love. She provides hope to a world in desperation. Her name is Eve, and she is to be the saviour of humanity.
In this exciting tale of a human race on the edge of collapse, Giovanna and Tom Fletcher explore concepts of love, duty and family, whilst raising important questions surrounding technology, science, ethics, and its role in the new world. Eve’s story is one which asks of scientific breakthrough and technological discovery, how far is too far?
Set to be the first in a trilogy series, Eve of Man is a science-fiction adventure that bursts free from its pages and runs wild in the mind of the reader.
