The official blurb (Courtesy of Amazon listing)
Edinburgh, 1645:
The bubonic plague rages. In a desperate attempt to quarantine the infected, the city leaders seal the residents of Mary King’s Close in their underground homes.
2015:
Mary King’s Close is reopened, unleashing a mutated plague upon the city residents. The Ringed are loose and they are hungry.
The UK government seal the survivors inside newly-erected fences.
dEaDINBURGH is declared a no man’s land, its residents left for dead and to the dead.
2050:
Joseph MacLeod, born onto the cobbles of the Royal Mile and stolen from the clutches of the infected is determined to escape the quarantined city. Under the guidance of former marine Padre Jock, he leaves the confines, and relative safety, of the city centre to hone his skills and learn to survive amongst The Ringed.
Alys Shephard, born into an all-women farming community believes a cure lies in the south of the quarantined zone. By far the most skilled combatant in the dead city, Alys burns with anger. The anger of an abandoned child.
Review
I had the pleasure of reading this book and the subsequent series as a beta reader and, at the start, I was dubious about the genre. This romantic fiction loving bookworm does enjoy a good thriller but, ‘dystopian horror’ is a whole new ballgame.
dEadinburgh: Vantage opens with a fight scene between the two protagonists, Joseph and Alys. I had to Google the weaponry that was mentioned as I was unfamiliar from the start. Please, don’t let that put you off.
The outcome of the fight is left in the balance as the story then leaps back to set the story leading up to the fight.
Joseph, we quickly learn is an orphan raised, by the ‘Brotherhood’ in the tunnels of St Mary’s Close and part of a ‘cult’ who serve the ‘Ringed’.
Craving a life outside of the Brotherhood, Joseph escapes the close and finds himself living on his wits, reliant on his keen archery skills. An unlikely friendship forms between Joseph and the exquisitely named ‘Padre Jock’. Having been raised without the support of family, Joseph sees a paternal figure in Padre Jock and they become close, travel companions.
Alys, is the product of a short-lived relationship between her mother and a man who was subsequently expelled from the all-woman community where she was raised.
Alys’ mother, Jennifer, is a fierce warrior and she is penned as the archetypal feminist with a deep mistrust of men. In parallel to Joseph’s travels with Padre Jock, Alys trains intensively with Jennifer who shows her no mercy as they practise fighting skills. Shadowed by her young cousin, Stephanie, Alys quickly becomes adept at hand to hand combat using the Sai, her weapon of choice.
Bad guy Bracha, a follower of the ‘deranged Somna’ features heavily as Joseph and Alys find their way through the now horror filled City of Edinburgh. They meet good and evil, along the way and learn more about what happened to their parents and the earlier residents
This story grabbed my attention from the pro-logue; not just because I had agreed to be a beta-reader but the sheer unpredictability of the story. Outside my comfort zone does not satisfactorily cover how new this style was, to me.
The characters are well drawn; although, I had hoped to see more development and was left wanting. This especially was true of the hospital scene. Stick with it, though, there are 4 books in the series and, like a jigsaw puzzle, each edition leads to another few pieces of the overall picture.
Mark Wilson is a great story-teller and, if you haven’t read his work, I would recommend doing so. In fact, I will be reviewing two more of his works in coming sessions and they couldn’t differ more from today’s entry.
Mark originally self-published and has moved to his own label – Mark Wilson Books and, as CP Wilson, is published by Bloodhound Books.
Book Escapes with BabsW67 