#BlogTour – #BookReview of #TheDescent by Paul E. Hardisty @Hardisty_Paul @RandomTTours @OrendaBooks #RandomThingsTours #ClimateEmergency #Prequel

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February 29

I'm thrilled to welcome you today to my publication day stop on the blog tour for The Descent by Paul E. Hardisty, prequel to bestselling and critically acclaimed climate emergency novel The Forcing. Thank you to Anne Cater and Orenda Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this outstanding book.

About the book:

Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long dead, recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.

But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail, steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time to find out for himself.

Determined to learn what really happened during his mother's escape from the concentration camp to which she and Kweku's father were banished, and their subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet.

What they find will challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive.

About the author:

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist.

He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels.

In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana'a. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Book of the Month, with The Descent out in 2024.

Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.

My Review:

The Descent by Paul E. Hardisty isn't just a prequel to his bestselling and critically acclaimed climate emergency novel The Forcing, but is also a sequel that introduces us to Kweko Ashford, whose father played such an important role in the previous story.

This timely and all too believable dystopian thriller makes for a shocking and uncomfortable read at times. A complex tale that not only tells the story of what led up to the events of the previous book, but also of what happened in the years after and the effect it has had on the people who survived and their descendants. The Descent is one of those books that really does stay with you long after the final page has been turned and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

As with The Forcing, the author uses his extensive experience as an environmental scientist to deliver a bone chilling novel that explores what could happen as a result of climate change in a world that has been brought to its knees due to the egotistical actions of a group of dangerous and power hungry men.

The story is narrated by Kweku in the future and an unnamed woman, known only as Sparkplug, who is broadcasting the story of what happened in the lead up to the catastrophic disaster that changed not only the world but humanity forever.

What follows is a fast paced and chilling thriller that will set your heart pounding and your pulse racing. The Descent is dystopian fiction at its very best and Paul Hardisty's writing is once again powerful and thought provoking as it bring to life a nightmare scenario that is almost too awful to contemplate.

I don't want to say too much more as this is a book that you need to read and discover for yourself, so all I will say is that, like The Forcing before it, this is a book that captured my imagination from the outset, drawing me into the devastating horror and not letting go until the final, terrifying page had been turned.

Paul E. Hardisty has written a chilling and thought provoking piece of speculative fiction that is sadly all too believable. The Descent is a powerful and beautifully written novel that completely blew me away. I didn't think it could be possible to match the brilliance of The Forcing, but this book is possibly even more devastating than its predecessor.

Novels that tackle the subject of something as important as climate change can often run the risk of coming across more like a sermon than a thriller, but these books are nothing like that at all. They are dark, highly emotive dystopian thrillers that keep the twists, turns, shocks and surprises coming throughout. With a cast of memorable characters, some of whom you can't help but fall in love with, The Descent is a scarily relevant story of humanity in all its many guises and is all the more powerful because of it..

I found both The Forcing and The Descent to be terrifyingly plausible and chilling thrillers that really did make me stop and think. A heart stopping force to be reckoned with, I honestly can't recommend these books highly enough.

The Descent by Paul E. Hardisty is available to buy now: