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Would you want to be one of the last ones alive
Last Ones Left Alive
What you need to know before your trail
Raised by her mother and Maeve on Slanbeg, an island off the west coast of Ireland, Orpen has a childhood of love, rockpools and stories by the fireside. But the stories grow darker, and the training begins. Ireland has been devoured by a ravening menace known as the skrake, and though Slanbeg is safe for now, the women must always be ready to run, or to fight.
When Maeve is bitten, Orpen is faced with a dilemma: kill Maeve before her transformation is complete, or try to get help. So Orpen sets off, with Maeve in a wheelbarrow and her dog at her side, in the hope of finding other survivors, and a cure. It is a journey that will test Orpen to her limits, on which she will learn who she really is, who she really loves, and how to imagine a future in a world that ended before she was born.
Travel Guide
Ireland
The island of Slanbeg is fictional thank goodness as the Skrake has been unleashed and it’s out to destroy the society and kill those who it manages to get. One bite from this and it will slowly kill the person until they can not breathe and their life withers away very quickly.
The land now is stained with disease and roads are dirt tracks, the earth is barren and hope it seems too, has vanished. But some of the landscape still retains the beauty of how things used to be…well for now”
“Around us the landscape changes constantly, The road shifts beneath me, twists and slopes , and every time I look up the world presents me with something new and I feel fresh, too. Despite myself, despite everything,. The world ended a long time ago but it is still beautiful.”
Slanbeg
The sun rises on Slanbeg and us with it. I hear the soft noises of the hens, the rooster making a racket no matter what the hour. The smell and sounds and the feeling of warmth even in the winter while the panes of glass had frost the whole way across and the ice storms went on for days.”
“Danger walks nearly on top of me, wanting to stay close, and I’m glad of him even if he should be staying to watch for Maeve. The shelves are long empty, matted with dust, broken. I can see the trail of fingers, fingers that were here long before mine, railing the dust that had already gathered on these empty shelves , finding nothing.”
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Oh dear goodness – the shrake is after you and if it bites, you die a slow death
The author has created a chilling and deadly Dsytopian Ireland and the language with its Irish quirks enhances the spirit and essence of time and place – so it does.
The narrator speaks in a nuanced voice, quiet, in short sharp sentences that make the language evoke the spikes and troughs of the landscape. For this is rough territory. Dangerous land.
” I am spooked is what I am”
Slanberg – the fictional setting thank goodness.Claustrophobic and a character study which pushes things to the extreme. The silence in this land is deafening.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Last Ones Left Alive
Destination : Ireland Author/Guide: Sarah Davis-Goff Departure Time: Dystopian
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