Peter Hodson Livres

A gripping, thought-provoking story about life after a nuclear holocaust, by a Newbery Medalist.

Murphy’s Last Law:‘If child abuse can happen, child abuse will happen.’Two sets of siblings—both with an elder brother and a younger sister—from opposite sides of the world, with completely different backgrounds, and yet their lives are quite similar.London, 1944. John (10) and Margaret (7) are evacuated and rendered orphans after being bombed out. After three years in an orphanage, they are shipped to Western Australia to become part of the so called ‘Lost Generation’.At the same time, Barega and Gedala, part-aboriginal siblings, of the same age and gender as of the English orphans, are swept into the anglicisation programme and become part of what was later described as the ‘Stolen Generation’.The siblings are separated and they suffer through intolerable abuse and shocking circumstances. Will they succumb to the horrors of this life that they have been thrown into, a life none of them had any choice in? Or will they be able to eventually escape the images that haunt them?Through the peril of the Vietnam War, the brothers’ lives become entwined and they form a close and trusting friendship bonded by a close comradery, having suffered a similar teenage upbringing.Read as this friendship not only brings the brothers but also the sisters together and eventually romantic bonds are formed.

The dangers of rapid developments in technology, along with climate change, are themes explored in this book through the story of a journalist, Jay, and his companion, Cindy, a photographer. They try to bring stories into the public domain which are being played down by the authorities, through the publications of the mysterious Hermes. He sends them on a series of missions which turn out to be both eye-opening and dangerous. Set over a period of around forty years and ending up in the year 2044, the world becomes an increasingly worrying and frightening place, where control of the internet means control of the world. As the years go by, Jay and Cindy, along with Hermes, find it increasingly difficult to speak openly about the stories of deception, greed and corruption that they uncover. How will the world look in 2044, and how will the human race survive on Planet Earth?