Silent City
A Novel
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“The definition of a single session read.” —Eoin Colfer, bestselling author of Artemis Fowl
For fans of Station Eleven and The Last of Us, an apocalyptic tale of a young woman fighting for life and justice in the tyrannical Phoenix City—the only place in Ireland yet to be overrun by the flesh-eating skrake
Outside the walls of Phoenix City, where the plague has overrun Ireland, one bite from the savage skrake means death or infection. Inside, Orpen and the other survivors of the plague gather in meager numbers. They are protected from the skrake, but the city is by no means a refuge.
Orpen is the only outsider ever admitted to the ranks of the banshees, the fierce, all-women force of fighters who push back the hungry skrake gathered at the city walls. Phoenix City is ruled with an oppressive hand—its best leaders power-hungry and ruthless—and the banshees keep the peace, or shatter it, depending on their orders.
But unrest is building in the city, and even some banshees question the cost of implementing the management’s patriarchal rule. When two banshees are publicly executed, and a foraging trip beyond the walls goes bad, Orpen knows she must make a choice between survival within a cruel society or treacherous freedom beyond the walls. She will need to muster all her courage and prowess if she and her fellow banshees are going to be able to find a way to escape—and rebuild a society worth fighting for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Davis-Goff's eloquent sequel to 2019's Last Ones Left Alive revisits her innovative take on the zombie trope. In a postapocalyptic Ireland, 14-year-old Orpen is rescued from the skrakes—creatures whose humanity has been "flayed away till there's nothing left but mouth and teeth and slug-proboscis-tongue"—by the banshees, a league of black-clad female warriors whose superior combat skills enable them to fend off skrake attacks. Flash-forward six years, and Orpen is now a banshee herself, living in Phoenix City, a stronghold of survivors with high walls to keep out the skrakes. She's proud of her warrior status, but as a series of attacks sweep the city, she begins to question the morality of the regime she serves. Davis-Goff elevates a familiar plot with vivid prose (the abandoned city of Dublin is described as resembling "a crust on the green skin of Ireland, a scab flaking slowly away") and emotionally resonant characterization. Horror fans looking for more than jump-scares will find it here.