The post-apocalypse novel is quicksand terrain for many new writers, it's initial allure as a plaything for broad imaginings and contemporary environmental concerns can seduce the naive and indeed the cynical into believing it's an easy place to make a name for oneself.
Alden Bell manoeuvres his writing across touchstones such as William Faulkner and Richard Matheson as opposed to fashionable cinematic styling's or dumbed down schlock novels and his words ring like polished glass in the light of reading because of this.

The strength and surprise of this book comes from the clarity of the imagined landscape as well as the deeply written characters, so we believe in the world they inhabit and the dangers they face.
The ruined earth is a place they are chained to, even in their dreams, and hope lives fleetingly and shadowed, like the wisp of a dream broken by the sound of a new day.
All of this means that as readers we are pulled along by an emotional response to people and events as well as curiosity.
The strength of the main character, Temple, comes from her principles and world view as well as her wits and this draws us to her tightly, as if her hard earned knowledge and world weariness might see us through the novel as well her casual observance of the violence and degradation she experiences on her travels.

The story itself is a simple one but is all the more resonant because of how it follows the moral self fulfilling prophecy that Temple and her adversary, Moses, play out during the course of the book. This creates an underlying fatalism and poignancy because although Temple tries to stay free from responsibility and the walls of new encampments, she is held firm by the restraints of her own ideas of who she is and how she should live and react to what occurs around her.

This is an exceptional novel and I highly recommend it.