When The Children Come by Barry Kirwan.
Published 2nd December 2020.
From the cover of the book:
Nathan, emotionally scarred after three tours in Afghanistan, lives alone in Manhattan until New Year’s Eve, when he meets Lara.“A fantastic and original premise...flashes of Stephen King and MR Carey.”
Tom Witcomb“A nicely taut thriller, with a Lee Child feel to its staccato writing and strong action sequences, and a high concept stretching the novel into true science fiction territory.”
Amanda Rutter“Not just a page-turner–all in all a fabulous novel, which I was sad to finish.”
Loulou Brown
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When The Children Come, the first in a new series by Barry Kirwan, was a bit of a departure from my usual kind of sci-fi read, which normally comprises something about time travel, a full on space opera, a post-apocalyptic Dystopian nightmare, or a Black Mirror type mindbender.
There is a space element, as you can tell from the cover, but this is more of drop you in at the beginning of a terrifying apocalyptic scenario - and what a scenario it is! I am not ashamed to say that this is just the kind of plot I find particularly disturbing actually, so there was an extra big dollop of the chills for me in this book.
It's pretty difficult to talk much about this one without giving away spoilers. Suffice to say, things get pretty bad for Nathan, Lara and Earth's children, along with the mixed bag of helpmates they pick up along the way, as they unexpectedly find themselves having to take on the role of saviours of humanity.
There is action aplenty here, a nice bit of science and speculation, and a great theme of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", which I really enjoyed. It was also very pleasing to have a bevy of smart female characters in this book, rather than consigning them to the 'weak and wishy-washy/always needing to be rescued category', which sometimes happens in a sci-fi adventure - good work Mr Kirwan! The story is nicely paced with lots of suspense, and it kept my interest all the way through to the very end - with an intriguing hook into the next book too.
For me, there was a real feel of Scott Sigler about this one, and there are definite echoes of some well received sci-fi books and action films/TV series in these pages too, with an intriguing underlying premise that is very thought provoking. I can't wait to see what happens next!
When The Children Come is available to buy now using the following links:
About the author:
Barry Kirwan was born in Farnborough and grew up watching the Red Arrow jet fighters paint the sky at air shows.
Thanks Sue for an excellent review, hope you didn't find it too chilling! But glad you liked the strong female characters, as well as 'the enemy of my enemy...' which continues to play out (larger) in the sequel. I'm now going to look out for Scott Sigler!
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