A Touch of Death

The Outlands Pentalogy Book One by Rebecca Crunden

There are only a handful of Post Apocalyptic books that I have loved and this is one of them. The description of the future a thousand years from now is so different to other post apocalyptic books. The way the author has described everything it felt like I was watching a movie play out in my mind. I really can’t wait to read more in this series to find out what happens.

We meet Catherine Taenia a thousand years in the future. She has lived a sheltered and privileged life so far in the capital city of Cutta. Where all the rich people live their comfortable lives behind the walls of protection. They aren’t troubled with famine and disease which ravages the rest of the kingdom. Her father is the kings hangman, he does what others don’t want to do! He isn’t called the hangman for anything.

Catherine is engaged to Thom Anteros. He is the younger brother of Nate who has shamed his family by going against the kings regime. He was only spared from the gallows because his mother is the kings favourite.

When Nate was released from prison he didn’t go back home as expected he just went missing. Two years later he unexpectedly turns up in Catherine and Thom’s life. As expected Nate soon gets in to trouble and drags Catherine into his troubles. So much so he and Catherine end up having to go on the run outside the wall known as the outlands.

The outlands are very dangerous, the land is wild, untamed and filled with mutants and rabids. This is the only place that the kings guards won’t follow them.

Nate has been over the wall before so he has some contacts to help them. They are eventually able to get in touch with Thom, to find out that their mother has managed to sort things out with the king. So Thom goes to collect them from a small village where they were able to rest and wash a weeks worth of grime of themselves and put on clean clothes.

This is where Catherine and Nate find out something has happened to them while they were in the outlands. Some sort of mutation. This sets alarm bells ringing to Nate, as he knows about tests that get preformed on some of the prisoners and that they never return.

They return to Catherine and Thom’s house in the capital. Where they start to research what could be wrong with them. Catherine tries to using her fathers privileged access codes to access restricted files, but there not on the system. It turns out that the files are stored in one of the most heavily guarded and secure buildings in the kingdom.

So Thom comes up with a plan to break in to the building. Catherine and Nate try to talk him out of it, but he wont listen to them. As time passes the kings guards turn up to arrest Catherine and Nate, so they find themselves on the run again.

Along the way they meet some friends and some foe. They don’t know who they can really trust. Will they find out what’s wrong with them and find a cure before the kings guards find them and most likely send them to prison or even worse the work camps that most people don’t often survive.

For a different type of post apocalyptic book that is so gripping and really sets off your imagination then this book is a must.

Lastly I’d like to thank Rebecca Crunden for letting me have a copy of her book and if your interested you can follow her one her own blog: Rebecca Crunden

Pages: 306, Publication Date: 23 February 2017, My Rating: