Book Review + Giveaway: SCAVENGER OF SOULS by Joshua David Bellin

Today's a great day to be a reader, and I'm happy to be participating in a blog tour to celebrate the new book, SCAVENGER OF SOULS! My full review is at the bottom of this post, AND there's a giveaway - so be sure to scroll down for everything!

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Age: 12+
Release date: August 23, 2016
For order links, visit http://joshuadavidbellin.com/my-books/
Available in hardcover and e-book

Description:

Querry Genn is running out of time. He may have saved his survival colony and defeated a nest of the monstrous Skaldi, but that doesn’t mean he has any more answers to who he is. And Querry’s mother, Aleka, isn’t talking. Instead, she’s leading the colony through a wasteland of unfamiliar territory. When they reach Aleka’s destination, everything Querry believed about his past is challenged.

In the middle of a burned-out desert, an entire compound of humans has survived with plenty of food and equipment. But the colonists find no welcome there, especially from Mercy, the granddaughter of the compound’s leader. Mercy is as tough a fighter as Querry has ever seen—and a girl as impetuous as he is careful. But the more Querry learns about Mercy and her colony, the more he uncovers the gruesome secrets that haunt Mercy’s past—and his own.

With threats mounting from the Skaldi and the other humans, Querry must grapple with the past and fight to save the future. In the thrilling conclusion to the story that began with Survival Colony 9, Joshua David Bellin narrates a tale of sacrifice, courage against overwhelming odds, and the fateful choices that define us for a lifetime.


Praise for Survival Colony 9:

Tantalizing mysteries abound among the human and inhuman inhabitants of the bleak landscape, and the post-apocalyptic plot is satisfyingly full of twists.—Booklist

Joshua David Bellin brings serious game in a post-apocalyptic thriller that collides breathless action with devious world building and genuine heart. A terrific novel!—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Rot & Ruin and V-Wars

Set in a gritty post-apocalyptic world, Survival Colony 9 is both an adventure and an exploration of what it means to be human.—Margaret Peterson Haddix, New York Times bestselling author of the Missing Series

About the author:

Joshua David Bellin has been writing novels since he was eight years old (though the first few were admittedly very short). He taught college for twenty years, wrote a bunch of books for college students, then decided to return to fiction. Survival Colony 9 is his first novel, with the sequel, Scavenger of Souls, set to release on August 23, 2016. A third YA science fiction novel, the deep-space adventure/romance Freefall, will appear in 2017.

Josh loves to read, watch movies, and spend time in Nature with his kids. Oh, yeah, and he likes monsters. Really scary monsters.

To find out more about Josh and his books, visit him at the following:

Website: http://www.joshuadavidbellin.com
Blog: http://theyaguy.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheYAGuy
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshuadavidbellin
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7393959.Joshua_David_Bellin


My Review of SCAVENGER OF SOULS:

If you have read Survival Colony 9, you must read Scavenger of Souls! And if you have not read Survival Colony 9 – what are you waiting for? Both books are fantastic, and Scavenger of Souls did not disappoint as a sequel. It picked up the storyline with Querry Genn and his quest to learn more about his past, but the journey is far from an easy one.

Joshua Bellin has an amazing talent for building worlds, developing characters, and devising an intricate plotline.

Bellin created a desolate setting, which Querry must traverse to save himself and his friends while fighting the Skaldi. In Scavenger of Souls, there were some new plot elements, some new characters, and some old issues resolved. As Querry learns more and more about himself and about the world he lives in, he realizes “Answers aren’t always true … and the truth isn’t always the answer you want” (page 8).

Some of my favorite lines from the book:

“It felt like the nervous energy that comes from staying up too many nights in a row, that feeling of hypersensitivity all along your scalp and pressure building behind your eyeballs.”

“The sky had turned the color of a day-old bruise, reducing the glow of the black desert to a dull gleam like burnished metal.”

I recommend both Survival Colony 9 and Scavenger of Souls. Plus, the great news is - if you’ve not already read the first book, you can read it now and go immediately into the second book with no wait in between! YAY for books. And YAY for Joshua Bellin and his terrific novels.

Be sure to enter the giveaway:


a Rafflecopter giveaway




Happy reading!

SURVIVAL COLONY 9 by Joshua David Bellin

Fourteen-year-old Querry Genn's world is a desert where small groups of survivors struggle against heat, starvation, and the creatures known as the Skaldi, monsters that appeared on the planet after war swept away the old world. Suffering from amnesia brought on by an accident, Querry struggles to recover the lost memories that might save the human race. But the Skaldi are closing in, and time is running out on Survival Colony 9.

In this excerpt, a scouting party investigates the western desert, where the colony has been driven following a Skaldi attack. There they find an abandoned settlement. Through Querry’s eyes, we meet some of the novel’s main characters: the commander of Survival Colony 9, Querry’s father Laman Genn; Laman’s second-in-command, Aleka; and Querry’s nemesis, Yov. We also hear rumors of the Skaldi, who are an ever-present threat in this world.

The trucks crawled up the hill, coughing and wheezing, pulled up on bare dirt and stopped with a squeal. My dad, moving faster than I’d seen him move in weeks, jumped down from the cab. He took a long look at the place, hands on hips, nodding slowly. Then he turned to us.

“Who found it?” He directed his question at Aleka, but I could tell he hoped the answer was me.

“Yov,” she said. “The kid’s got eyes like a hawk.”

My dad stepped over to Yov and reached up to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder. Yov had a calm look on his face, like he was saying, “hey, just doing my job,” but I knew I’d be hearing about this later. From both of them.

“Good work,” my dad said.

Sure enough, Yov looked sidelong at me and smirked.

“We’ll have to double-check,” my dad said. “Aleka, have your team sweep the perimeter. Querry,” he signaled. “Get over here.”

While Aleka and the others fanned out to circle the compound, I accompanied him to the interior, near the crater. For an hour he had me get down on my hands and knees to peer in the dust for signs of Skaldi. He’d taught me how to detect their presence, but it’s not easy. When they leave a body behind, there’s nothing much to see. Emptied, like a sack of skin.

He kept up a running commentary as I crawled around in the dirt searching for evidence. “It doesn’t have to be much,” he reminded me. “Scraps, flakes. Teeth. Anything they might have left behind.”

“What about this?” I lifted a long, thin strip of some translucent material from the floor of a ruined house.

He scrutinized it. “I don’t think so. Bring it back, though. I’ll have Tyris take a look at it.”

Eventually we came to the very lip of the crater. He considered sending me down inside, but the walls fell away steeply and the rock looked precarious. He made me hunt around the edge anyway.

“Seems clean,” I told him when I was done.

“Check again,” he said.

I dropped to the dust and searched once more for signs I couldn’t see.

We strolled back to the others when he was satisfied with my inspection. “Something about this place,” he said. “Familiar. Like I’ve heard someone talk about it before.”

He shook his head, remembering, not remembering. He’d told me stories about what cities used to look like, with shining towers of steel and legions of cars streaming down the avenues. But he’d never seen one himself, not that he could remember. Only the old woman had, and the holes in her memory gaped as wide as the cracks in the houses that were left.

When we returned to the others, I could feel the anticipation in the air. No one budged, but all eyes zeroed in on him.

“Aleka,” he said. “Report.”

“No sign,” she said. “And Laman—there’s food.”

The magic word shivered through the crowd. His face remained composed, but I saw his eyes light up. “Where?”

Aleka led the two of us to the structure farthest from the nucleus of camp, a windowless square of gray cinderblock overlooking the hill’s eastern edge. My dad said it looked like a bomb shelter, but even if bombs had been flying or Skaldi breathing down our necks, there was nowhere near enough room for our whole camp. Probably it had belonged to a single family in the time before. It seemed to be the only building in the compound with working locks, two in fact, one in front and one on a trapdoor that led to a basement level. But the doors stood open, the deadbolts sprung. A flight of rickety wooden stairs led below. And in a corner of the basement, on the packed dirt floor, sat a pyramid of wooden cases filled with rusty metal cans.

“You’re sure it’s edible?” my dad asked, holding one of the cans up in the glow of Aleka’s flashlight.

“According to Tyris, properly canned goods have an effective shelf life of forever,” she answered. “But Laman. . . .”

He lowered the can. “I’m listening.”

“It might be best to take what we can carry and go. I’m not—comfortable here. We’re exposed. There’s only one way out. If they were to block the road. . . .”

“Not their typical behavior,” he said. “And you told me the perimeter’s clean.”

“So far as we can ascertain,” she said. “But this room—I suspect it’s been looted.” She shone her flashlight on the floor, revealing parallel tracks where cases had been dragged. “We may not be the only colony to have visited this place.”

“And the ones who beat us to it are plainly gone,” he replied. “Driven away by Skaldi, most likely. Leaving nothing but food the Skaldi won’t return for.”

“Unless they return for us.”

SURVIVAL COLONY 9 is available now from Simon & Schuster, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, select Wal-Mart stores, and other online and physical retailers!

About me:



I've been writing novels since I was eight years old (though the first few were admittedly very short). I taught college for twenty years, wrote a bunch of books for college students, then decided to return to fiction. SURVIVAL COLONY 9 is my first novel, but the sequel’s already in the works!

To connect with me and learn more about SURVIVAL COLONY 9, check out the following links:



Website

Twitter

Facebook

Blog

Goodreads