Published 21st October 2021.
From the cover of the book:
Is the enemy of your enemy really your friend?Ten years have passed since the Axleth invaded Earth and a few hundred humans escaped aboard the ship Athena, piloted by the Artificial Intelligence who calls himself Ares.
"When the Children Return is a thrilling sequel that takes the series in epic new directions..." Tom Witcomb
I grew up in Farnborough, England, home to the fast-jet Red Arrows, and started writing when still at school, a weekly satirical thriller called the Adventures of Blackie the Cat for my classmates. I then got hooked on academic writing for my day job (preventing disasters in nuclear power plants, oil rigs and aircraft) and published four text books on human error. It wasn’t until I moved to Paris that I started writing fiction again, with the Eden Paradox released in 2011. It was intended to be a one-off, but I got a lot of fans demanding more, and so it went ‘epic’, a space opera of four books.
Now, the refugees approach Earth, determined to take back their home. But something has followed them from deep in space, and as war breaks out on Earth, humanity must decide who is the real enemy.
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When the Children Return picks up the story of Nathan, Lara, Sally and the few hundred other adults and children that managed to escape from Earth on the space ship Athena, in order to avoid certain death at the hands of the alien Axleth invasion force. They have now spent ten years aboard Athena, working hard to prepare themselves for the forthcoming battle to retake their planet from its alien masters, and trying to live as normal a life as possible under unique circumstances. They are unsure what they will find on their return, or even if humanity still exists at all, but the children that left ten years ago have been shaped into a fighting force to be reckoned with, now under the leadership of Sally - some with added enhancements courtesy of their AI host Ares. There is also the mystery surrounding a possible even greater enemy - The Eye.
The battle for Earth is about to begin, but it's not always easy to tell who is your friend, or who is your enemy...
I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, When the Children Come (my review here), with its terrifying alien invasion and apocalyptic themes. This second book takes everything into space opera fun, with the characters we came to champion last time around ten years into their mission to become humanity's last hope, under the leadership of Sally, who is now their president despite her youth. Things have been far from easy on the Athena, and Ares still remains a mystery to many of his human guests, which does nothing to dispel the idea that he is hiding secrets about his intentions - there have definitely been some mysterious goings on, including some odd disappearances of those who didn't always agree with Ares' way of doing things, but Sally has grown to see him as her mentor, and she feels she needs to rely to his judgement if their attempt to retake Earth is to succeed.
There are a lot of things I cannot divulge here about what lies instore for our human and enhanced human freedom fighters, or their enemies, but can tell you that Barry Kirwan throws almost everything at you in terms juicy themes about the potential pitfalls of AI technology, and most intriguingly takes the notion of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' into some very twisty and complex country.
Many of the characters we came to know in the first book develop nicely in this instalment, and the children who were rescued now come into their own after the ten years they have spent in training. There is plenty of human interest in their stories, which allows Kirwan to explore some deep themes about survival, love, loss, and connection which really adds depth to the tale among all the sci-fi action - and there is a lot of cracking sci-fi action to enjoy!
Second books in a series often suffer from being in the middle of the arc of a story, but I have to say that there is so much going on here in terms of tasty plotlines and character development that I actually found this very exciting and immersive. The action is relentless, fed by dollops of intrigue and the feeling of not quite knowing who to trust, and I could not put the book down until all the little twists and turns had worked themselves out, culminating in a very entertaining finale. Kirwan then gives a little glimpse of what comes next for our plucky heroes, as they take the war for survival into the heart of the lair of the big bad boss - The Eye.
If you like your sci-fi full of spills, thrills and gripping scenes, with an added philosophical dimension to set your mind working, then this book has everything you are looking for. I cannot wait to see what Kirwan has up his sleeve for the final book!
When the Children Return is available to buy now in ebook and paperback formats from your favourite book retailer, or via the links below:
Thank you to Barry Kirwan and Rachel Gilbey of Rachel's Random Resources Tours for sending me an e-copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
After an accident with my back and two subsequent operations, I was laid up for a long while and couldn’t scuba dive-my other passion-so I wrote a thriller about a spy who was also a scuba diver, and the Nadia Laksheva series was (to my amazement at the time) snapped up by Harper Collins. They asked me to use a pseudonym, which is where the initials J F came from, borrowed from my late father, who loved thrillers.
Although I keep my work and fiction separate (some of my colleagues aren’t convinced) the fiction is always influenced by my psychological training, and an unending fascination with how the mind works, and how it can go off the rails. This most clearly comes out in my two new series, Greg Adams (The Dead Tell Lies) and Children of the Eye (When the Children Come).My favourite sci-fi authors range from Asimov and Clarke, to Brin, McDevitt, Hamilton, Asher and Reynolds. My favourite thriller writers are Baldacci, Child and Nesbo. My favourite moment as an author is when I’m sitting with my laptop with an espresso macchiato, wondering what comes next in a story, when suddenly it arrives, and I can’t type fast enough.
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