- Title:
- Bombmaker
- By:
- Claire McFall
- Pages:
- 336
- Rating:
- 5
The English government have closed the borders with their Celtic neighbours. Any Celt found in England is branded with a tattoo, found twice they are executed. Scottish Lizzie is the ‘property’ of psychopathic London gang boss Alexander. Can Lizzie escape Alexander’s deadly grip and at what price her betrayal?
“It tasted awful, but it felt good.”
This is a stunning novel. It has a huge, gritty, post-apocalyptic feel to it, nevermind that the apocalypse was financial and socially dehumanising rather than caused by zombies, aliens or viruses. I was put in mind of Ken Jack’sUnited States of Europe of course, but Mcfall has that young-adult voice of Chris Ryan, Eoin Colfer and Anthony Horowitz nailed to perfection.
The subject matter is also very topical: devolution was a serious public thought last year, and the extrapolation here is deft and terrifying. The work is very UK-centric, which is a refreshing change for me at least, and is seriously one of the most gripping, compellingly forceful works to cross my screen in a long time. I found it in a newspaper, if you’ll believe that – The best young adult books of 2014 from the Telegraph; and I couldn’t put it down. If you like your teens building bombs, your countries socially divided and the possibility of the celts being chucked out of England ever occurred to you, this is seriously worth your time.