About The Girl Who Found the Sun

It started with the insects.

The mass die-offs had been a warning unheeded. Before society realized the danger, the Earth had inexorably begun a transformation into a place where life could not survive. A small group found shelter in the Arc, an underground refuge safe from the toxins ravaging the surface.

After centuries of darkness, humanity’s second chance is running out—and Raven Wilder knows it.

Her job fixing the machinery in the Arc makes her aware of how close everything is to breaking down. When the systems fail, the last survivors of the human race will suffocate in the tunnels meant to protect them from the deadly air outside—starting with the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, in an example of history repeating itself, those in charge dismiss her concerns.

When her six-year-old begins showing signs of oxygen deprivation, Raven refuses to go quietly into oblivion.

She will break every rule to keep her daughter alive.

My Thoughts

This post-apocalyptic sci-fi offering opens in the bowels of the Arc, a failing underground community where electrical engineer Raven Wilder attempts to repair yet more decrepit wiring. It’s an essential role and it’s never ending. The Arc needs electricity to power the air scrubbers. There’s a hydroponic farm processing CO2 to help maintain oxygen levels. Everyone is told no one can go up and outside; conditions are much too toxic with flesh-eating vapours. It’s a bleak setting, yet Raven’s father told her stories of his trips outside, stories of what he saw and found. Raven is curious to know if what he said is true. Meanwhile, numbers are down in the human population who are struggling to survive and procreate. With only 183 remaining, there are concerns over inbreeding. Everyone wears rags as no one knows how to make clothes; the skill has been lost. If something doesn’t change, they are doomed. When her young daughter Tinsley suffers symptoms of hypercapnia, Raven decides to act.

As I’ve come to expect with Matthew S. Cox, the writing is clean, the narrative fast-paced, the world-building plausible and lean. He manages to make even the most mundane and tedious of tasks – fixing wiring – gripping, and he avoids the ‘telling’ trap, showing his readers the dystopian reality he has constructed and offering minimal explanations. Cox has crafted a powerful and independent protagonist in Raven appealing to all readers. I sense a touch of Alien without the hideous monster, and can’t help picturing Sigourney Weaver in the lead role.

The Girl Who Found the Sun will appeal to young adult readers and adults alike, another corker from a master storyteller.

About Matthew S. Cox

Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, the Prophet of the Badlands series, and the Daughter of Mars series take place.

His books span adult, young-adult, and middle-grade fiction in multiple genres, predominantly science fiction, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, and fantasy.

Links

Amazon link – https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Found-Sun-ebook/dp/B082H3B9T1/

Twitter: @Mscox_Fiction / https://twitter.com/mscox_fiction

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewSCoxAuthor

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/mscox

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/matthewcox10420/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7712730.Matthew_S_Cox

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mscox.author/

Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of unique and engaging fiction. She writes gripping mysteries, dark psychological thrillers and historical fiction. Her dark fiction includes The Cabin Sessions and The Legacy of Old Gran Parks

About Prophet’s Journey (Prophet of the Badlands)

Althea struggles to adapt to an unexpected twist in her life—not being kidnapped in six whole months.The strange police from the faraway city claim the abilities she thought of as magic are really ‘psionics,’ and say she is far stronger than anyone they have ever seen. Despite their curiosity, they let her remain in the Badlands to protect her from an evil they call corporations. Of course, Althea knows all too well how powerful her healing gift is. For most of her life, she’d been a prize taken in raids. Tribes have killed to own her, and she let them.But the Prophet is done being passive.Having a family changes everything. No longer afraid to use her powers to protect herself, Althea refuses to be taken again… even when corporate mercenaries find her.

My Thoughts

A Prophet’s Journey is a fabulous book to sink into during our troubled Covid 19 times. The story is told through the eyes of Althea, an innocent eleven-year old struggling to come to terms with life in her adoptive family as everything around her is strange. She’s bilingual, Spanish and English, and the two become muddled in her mind, so much so that an assessment to determine if she is fit for school apportions her the mental age of a six-year old, something Althea is puzzled by. The people in her new home don’t seem to get her. And Althea knows she is mature beyond her years. In the opening chapters, the author masterfully handles the strangeness of Althea’s reality, easing the reader into the dystopian world he has created. This dystopian setting is situated in middle America. Things we take for granted – roads and traffic lights – are to Althea most odd. And that’s just the beginning.

Althea is The Prophet, a great healer, “the child with the blue eyes that lit up like stars.” She is a mystic with paranormal and transformational powers. She has telempathy, the ability to read or change the emotions of others, and this makes her highly sensitive to all impressions. I am reminded of indigo children, those with indigo auras especially sensitive to the high toxicity of the modern era, often with creative, artistic and mystic abilities. They are said to have rather piercing blue eyes, like Althea’s.

Prophet’s Journey is a story of Althea’s quest to return to her adoptive family after she is kidnapped. Thwarting her journey through the Badlands are the Raiders and the robotic tribe Sigma Six. Both groups have only one aim, to kill humans. Beautifully told through the eyes of a child with excellent characterisation especially of the protagonist, Cox delivers a page-turning, post-apocalyptic dystopian adventure with tremendous imagination, wit and insight into the dark and the light of humanity. A refreshing and absorbing read.

About Matthew S Cox

His books span adult, young-adult, and middle-grade fiction in multiple genres, predominantly science fiction, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, and fantasy.

Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, developer of two custom tabletop RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of humanity, reality, life, and what might happen after it.

He is also fond of cats, presently living with two: Loki and Dorian.