And I can't imagine a single reader that won't fall in love with Nero, the perspicacious crow. And this ruined future world rises from the pages with a raw and vivid energy. The pace is relentless and you feel her urgency in every word. But Saba gets a great deal across in her chopped-down style and I loved her as a character. The feel is that of a revenge Western - in this book, America's future is as lawless as its mythic past. Written in a sparse, spare style that fits the bleak setting perfectly, and with a first-person narration that gets us right inside Saba's skin from the very first page, I absolutely loved reading Blood Red Road.

Spikey, quick to judge, full of bravado, she'll also avoid love of every kind until she begins to learn that it's the only thing that can save her - any of us. She'll endure life as a slave cage-fighter, try and fail to shake off the resented Emmi, fall in with a band of Amazonian women rebels, and see the cost of drug addiction at the closest of quarters. Saba finds herself on a quest to rescue him and it will take her through the ruined world left by the Wreckers (that'll be us). But it's all she knows and as long as Lugh is close, she's happy enough.īut that all changes when the Tonton soldiers arrive, abduct Lugh, and kill Pa. Saba worships Lugh, resents Emmi for their mother's death in childbirth, and is confused by her father, who believes he can read the future in the stars. The family has just one neighbour - a chaal addict, so not exactly sociable - so Saba's only companions are her father, her twin brother Lugh, and younger sister Emmi. Saba has lived in the desolation surrounding the dried-up Silverlake for all of her eighteen years. It's beautifully done in spare prose and has a marvellous central character. Summary: Fabulous quest novel set in a future dystopian society and in the current vogue style of a revenge Western.

Blood red road