Genre:
Romantic Thriller/Post-Apocalyptic
Description:
In
2018, the world’s population has been decimated by a virulent
virus, and as if that’s not tough enough, a rapid freeze has
covered England under snow and ice. London, where the story takes
place, is buried by twenty meters of snow.
Author:
When
she’s not writing fiction, Ms. Revellian designs and makes
jewellery under her real name, Lexi Dick. She’s made pieces for
Margaret Thatcher, 10 Downing Street, and Her Majesty the Queen.
Ice
Diaries is her
fifth novel. You can learn more about her at her website.
Appraisal:
In her
Amazon author profile, Ms. Revellian boasts that she has sold 60,000
self-published books. After reading Ice
Diaries, my only question
would be, “Why so few?”
I had
a terrific time sharing a snow-swamped London with the characters in
Ice Diaries.
The author’s writing style is about as easy on the eye as any I can
remember — like listening to a compelling after-dinner story told
by a fascinating guest.
I
particularly enjoyed the makeshift communities I spent time in with
Tori, the twenty-three year-old protagonist. Her engaging nature and
irreverent wit had me smiling, a lot. Tori hangs out with a small
group of liberal-types. They have dug tunnels below the snow and live
off the contents of the buried stores. This small group of survivors
squat in apartments still above the snow level, furnish themselves
with necessities from Argos (for Americans, think Sears), and live in
hope that someone in the warmer south will send a helicopter to
rescue them.
Along
with Tori, I enjoyed her group of characters and the naive structure
they force on themselves to retain a level of civility. They
establish foraging rules and game nights and dinner parties — very
British, in an eccentric but nice way.
Along
comes Morgan, a rough, brooding, and dangerous cage fighter. He turns
Tori’s head, forcing her to look outside the quaint but unrealistic
life she has fallen into. When Morgan’s ex-gang members come
looking for him, the pleasant balance of Tori’s community is turned
upside down. Drawing on an inner strength that surprises everyone
including Morgan, in the end she finds a way out of their
difficulties, and in the process changes all their lives.
FYI:
English
(UK) spelling.
Added
for Reprise Review: Ice
Diaries was a nominee in
the Thriller category for B&P 2014 Readers' Choice Awards.
Original review ran October 24, 2013
Format/Typo
Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: Pete Barber
Approximate
word count: 70-75,000
words
No comments:
Post a Comment