'Absolutely amazing... a cross between The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Walking Dead' Eoin Colfer 'You'll be terrified, fascinated and above all, uplifted by Orpen - a heroine to rival Philip Pullman's Lyra or The Passage's Amy' Stylist Raised by her mother and Maeve on Slanbeg, an island off the west coast of Ireland, Orpen has a childhood of love and stories by the fireside. But the stories grow darker, and the training begins. Ireland has been devoured by a ravening menace known as the skrake, and though Slanbeg is safe for now, the women must always be ready to run, or to fight. When Maeve is bitten, Orpen is faced with a dilemma: kill Maeve before her transformation is complete, or try to get help. So Orpen sets off, with Maeve in a wheelbarrow and her dog at her side, in the hope of finding other survivors, and a cure. It is a journey that will test Orpen to her limits, on which she will learn who she really is, who she really loves, and how to imagine a future in a world that ended before she was born.

From the author of LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE comes the story of young female warrior who must start a revolution if she and those she loves are to survive. Orpen has always been an outlier in Phoenix City - the only outsider ever admitted to the ranks of the banshees, the female warriors who enforce order, and protect it from the skrake - the ravening creatures that have laid waste to the rest of the country, and gather at the city walls. Unrest is building in the city - a deadly sickness is spreading through the workers, while an unspoken disillusionment is creeping amongst the fighting women, weary of enforcing the all-male management's patriarchal rule, and of the cost, to their sisters, and to young new recruits, of upholding this order. Rumour has it that banshees have been taking matters into their own hands, and taking swift and violent revenge. When Orpen's troop leader falls under suspicion it becomes clear that Orpen will need to muster all her courage and prowess if she and her fellow banshees are going to be able to find a way to escape, and rebuild a society worth fighting for.

For fans of Station Eleven and The Last of Us, an apocalyptic tale of a young woman fighting for life and justice in the tyrannical Phoenix City--the only place in Ireland yet to be overrun by the flesh-eating skrake Outside the walls of Phoenix City, where the plague has overrun Ireland, one bite from the savage skrake means death or infection. Inside, Orpen and the other survivors of the plague gather in meager numbers. They are protected from disease and death, but the city is by no means a refuge. Phoenix City is ruled with an oppressive hand, with even the best of the leadership power hungry and ruthless. Orpen and the banshees--a fierce, all-women force of fighters--keep the peace, or shatter it, depending on their orders. But when two women are publicly executed, Orpen knows she must make a choice between guaranteed survival within a cruel society or treacherous freedom beyond the walls. A story of friendship, justice, and belonging, Silent City is a feminist, voice-driven take on leadership in dire times.