Book Synopsis:
LAURIE STERNE feels like he’s been cut adrift in space. His father has been shot dead, caught in the crossfire of a gangland war that has also claimed his boss’s life. Laurie is a refugee who lost his adoptive mum years before and doesn’t know where he was born, let alone who his birth parents were. But he’s not alone in the world: someone is trying to kill him.
This is London, 2050, a dumping ground for climate refugees and dissidents. Gangs rule, murder goes unpunished and the police make sure you can’t escape.
In his struggle to stay alive, he finds an ally: his former boss’s secret daughter.
But with the killer predicting his every move, is the man without a past being betrayed by the woman who seems to offer him a future?
Black Ditch is available now in ebook and paperback. The ebook is currently at the bargain price of 99p. You can purchase your copy using the link below.
My Review:
Black Ditch is a very impressive debut novel that offers a chilling and compelling look into a potential London of the future.
I always love Dystopian novels as it’s so interesting to see what the author’s imagination can come up with. This author’s vision is very hard hitting as it’s a future that could actually happen as it is that way due to climate change, which we all know is a problem. Slowly the new world is revealed to the reader and it is one that seems both familiar but also altered and bleak. There is a definite human hierarchy that often leaves people stuck in tower blocks fearful to go out due to the gangs that rule the city. I found this world frightening but also very interesting and I enjoyed learning more about it.
I thought this was quite a fast paced story with a very clever plot which I enjoyed watching unfold. Laurie is a brave and intelligent main character who I enjoyed following throughout the book as he tried to work out who he was and where he fit in.
This unbelievably is the author’s debut novel and I can’t wait to read more in this promising series.
Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Simon J Lancaster is the author of The Black Ditch, the first in the Laurie Sterne trilogy of dystopian future thrillers. Prior to writing novels he was a national newspaper journalist in London, as well as a music critic and private pilot. He has written short stories and plays and, after reading extensively about climate change, concluded that the fantasy gun-play of contemporary-set action novels would be the lived experience of our coming world.
Over The Rainbow Blog 