Thanks again to The Lymington Times for their kind review of Harbinger...
Hurst Castle is the setting for Harbinger, the latest installment in Robin Crumby’s dystopian, near-future book series The Hurst Chronicles.
Featuring locations from throughout the New Forest and Solent, the story follows the trials and tribulations of a group of survivors who have made the fortress their home two years after a devastating flu pandemic that’s infected billions. If that sounds scarily familiar, no one was more surprised than the author who started writing the series in 2015, trying to imagine what life would be like in the aftermath of an unstoppable virus. Where would people go to survive? What would life be like?
In The Hurst Chronicles, a military-led relief operation has created a safe zone, free of the virus, on the Isle of Wight, but not everyone shares the military’s aspirations for reconstruction. Dark forces seek to prolong the lawlessness, pursuing their own ambitions. There’s a war coming that threatens to return the whole Solent region to chaos. Hurst Castle once again finds itself in the path of the coming storm.
Robin says: “Finishing book four in the middle of a real-life pandemic was hard. Life was proving stranger than fiction, playing out in real-time. I needed the story to be as true-to-life as possible which involved huge amounts of research into previous epidemics and the development of vaccines. The search for a vaccine, the test and trace pilot on the island, and rolling lockdowns were now familiar concepts that needed to be taken into account. Plus not being able to visit locations meant lots of desk-based research instead.”
In Harbinger, the Allies’ investigation into the causes of the outbreak leads them back to the military research facility at Porton Down, just north of the New Forest. However, the search for a viable vaccine is just the beginning. A stepping stone towards a genetic revolution. A terrifying future that could change everything. All that remains is a race against time to save those they care about. Only the strong will survive.
The story will appeal to those who enjoy fast-paced post-apocalyptic thrillers like The Day of the Triffids or Survivors. “A thought-provoking story of an all-too-possible dystopian future.”
Harbinger is available from Amazon, published in both paperback and on Kindle: http://amzn.to/1Rd4Roh
