TW: Death, Torture
Dystopian books are always interesting to me. I love to see what spin an author puts on their image of the future. I haven’t been reading much dystopian fiction over the last year given that 2020 could have thrown us anything, but I’m happy to be getting back into the genre.
In the first book of Rebecca Crunden’s Outlands Pentalogy: A Touch of Death, the planet has been through a terrible battle between the humans and the mutants. The remaining humans are under the rule of one monarch in the Kingdom of Cutta. There is one religion and one language. Freedom and history are outlawed. The most important aspects of society are conformity, control, and continuation.The King requires that his subjects reproduce, and complemented pairs that produce 3 or more children are given grants.
But not everything is sunny in the Kingdom of Cutta. Famine and poverty are rampant outside the prosperous capital. Diseases such as the Plague and the Bite still ravage the population. Dissenters are imprisoned and often executed if their families are not of enough influence to prevent it.
And though the king took great strides to cover up the atrocities of the war, vile things still linger in the mountains. Catherine “Kitty” Taenia and Nate Anteros stumble upon an experimental serum while camping out in an abandoned building in the Nitoib Mountain Range, and find themselves inflicted with a strange infection. Nate is rapidly deteriorating, and they must race to find answers in a kingdom that likes to bury its mistakes.
I loved this book. I loved the search for answers and the bond that Kitty formed with Nate as the story moved forward. It was clear that she had “bought-in” at a very early age, but after seeing things for herself and losing ones she loved, her mind changes about Cutta and even her own family. She has become a stronger, more resilient person.
I plan to read on in this series – I need to know how Kitty moves forward. I am so glad I got the opportunity to review this book! Thank you to Rebecca Crunden for providing me a copy for review!
I received a free copy of this book and am leaving this review voluntarily.
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