Author(s): Blythe Woolston

Young Adult Fiction

In a remote part of the US the paranoid survivalist fringe has begun its war. And Valley is a key weapon. She's wearing the bomb vest and the clock is ticking. Ever since Mabby died suddenly while picking beans in their garden - with the pock-a-pock of a helicopter overhead - four-year-old Valley knows what her job is: hide in the underground den with her brother, Bo, while Da is working, because Those People will kill them like coyotes. But now, with Da unexpectedly gone and no home to go back to, a teenage Valley (now Valkyrie) and her big brother must bring their message to the outside world - a not-so-smart place where little boys wear their names on their backpacks and young men don't pat down strangers before offering a lift. Blythe Woolston infuses her white-knuckle narrative, set in a day-after-tomorrow Montana, with a dark, trenchant humour and a keen psychological eye. Alternating past-present vignettes in prose as tightly wound as the springs of a clock and as masterfully plotted as a game of chess, she ratchets the pacing right up to the final, explosive end. It is a powerful psychological thriller in which the reader views the world through the eyes of an abused but committed killer. Google "Black Helicopters" and discover a real world of paranoia, this book is closer to reality than we want to believe. Blythe Woolston won the 2011 William C. Morris debut fiction award for The Freak Observer.