What would you do to survive when all around you are losing their heads? Where would you go? Where would you be safe?

At the end of the world, surrounded by the tidal waters of the Solent, the survivors of a pandemic flu virus hide behind the high walls of a Tudor fortress. Scraping a living far away from the smoking ruins of the cities, they wait in hope.

Hurst Castle stands alone. Its seventy-four occupants united in a struggle for survival against all the odds. The Millennial Virus is the least of their concerns.

When the arrival of outsiders threatens to tip the balance of power, the people of Hurst are faced with a desperate choice: set aside their differences and join an alliance that promises new hope or unite against the newcomers and their plans for reconstruction. Who can be trusted? Only time will tell.

The battle for Hurst has begun.

Robin Crumby has written a lively action book which follows a tried and tested post-apocalypse setting. My thoughts went to a combination of the BBC TV series Survivors, and William Brinkley’s The Last Ship.

The book contains several storylines as different characters and groups become involved in different events in and around Hurst. I found the various stories easy to follow but at times we had long waits before returning to some characters. I also appreciated the locations which were in an area that I am familiar with.

On a few occasions I wanted to shout at the characters for their poor judgement in difficult situations. These are people who have managed against the odds to survive for two years in a very hostile environment yet at times they make the most irrational and dangerous decisions.
But that was a small issue because on the whole what we have here is an easy to read story of a wide mix of characters battling the odds and generally coming out on top.

A classic formula for an entertaining novel that richly deserves four stars.

Robin Crumby is an author and writer living in London with his wife and two children. Since reading John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids as a child, he became fascinated by end of the world dystopian literature.

More recently, re-reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven inspired him to start writing. Why? Because post-apocalyptic fiction fires the imagination like nothing else. Pondering what comes next, who would survive, what would life look like? Much of the best fiction in this popular genre focuses on brain-eating zombies or events unfolding in the USA so Robin determined to write a story set in the UK.

His Eureka moment came wandering the shingle beach at Milford-on-sea, inspired by the beauty and rich history of the Solent. Where better to survive the end of the world than a medieval castle surrounded by water? Robin spent much of his childhood messing about in boats, exploring the many waterways, ports and military forts of the Isle of Wight, where The Hurst Chronicles are set.

www.hurstchronicles.com
@HurstChronicles
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