Eden

From the bestselling author of The Silence comes a brand-new supernatural eco thriller. In large areas of the planet, nature is no longer humanity's friend...
In a time when Earth's rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world.
Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive.
Also in Dylan's team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret--Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity's friend.

Many thanks to Titan Books for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review and for including me on this blog tour.

I confess: while I am terribly addicted to nature vs. human movies, I’ve never actually read a book in that genre.

This was my first. As far as firsts go, I really can’t complain. This was a nice foray into a genre that I’ve loved in a different medium .. except this time, in book format. With words and everything! How novel! (I refuse to apologize for that pun. Forget it. I’m just owning this one.)

Eden is a brutal, gory exploration of what happens when climate change destroys the planet and humans, in one last desperate act, create human-free zones reclaimed by nature. As it turns out, sometimes nature will fight to keep what it’s got.

So, guys, I grew up with Jurassic Park as my absolutely favorite movie series. And then when King Kong came out? I was all over that, too. And Anaconda? Yes, please. These are my thing. I just love nature ridding itself of the pest that is humanity, I guess. What can I say? So this book … very much the same vibe. If you’re a fan of any of those movies, rest assured, this book is for you.

❧ While the basic idea of nature vs. humans is a commonly used one, Lebbon makes it his own with a realistic and breathtaking future Earth.

I mean, it’s not exactly hard to imagine humans continuing on their trajectory and severely damaging the planet, right? Super realistic and probable, which makes the idea even creepier.

The entire focus, though, is on these human-free zones that the world has come together to create, in the hopes that nature will be able to reestablish itself and the planet will live on. With or without humanity, though, remains to be seen. These zones have taken on a life of their own, as nature is wont to do, and hold their own secrets not meant for human eyes. Which just makes humans want to see them more, and you’d think nature would learn that by now, especially after all the nature vs. human plots we’ve had, and yet it never does. How has Earth survived this long?! Pfft.

The descriptions of Eden are both breathtaking and terrifying. It’s a delicate balance, but Lebbon does a fabulous job of bringing the zone to life, for better or worse.

Hopefully not too much to life, please and thanks, because I’m not quite ready for that. I had such a good sense of traveling with this group of explorers through the vivid, lovely descriptions. Which was especially a treat considering we’re all stuck in our houses lately, seeing the same bland walls every day, and boy did this feel like a well-needed escape.

❧ All the popular tropes are in this book, and that’s not even a bad thing because, one, that’s what we’re here for, if we’re honest with ourselves, and two, they were hella fun to read.

I mean, what’s the point of this genre if not the tropes? Would this even really be a thing if our intrepid characters didn’t get several ominous warnings that they ignore? If they didn’t go in with secrets and ulterior motives? If some beast wasn’t stalking them? No, of course not. How disappointing would that be?

On every one of these points, Eden delivers. As I said, if the nature vs. humans trope is your thing, this is your book. Because humans never learn, and nature is ruthless. That’s just the way things are. Not that I can actually say anything about it, but I did enjoy the way the author twisted the tropes for his own purpose.

❧ What is a dangerous journey without entertaining characters? This cast was just plain fun.

They’re a group that’s done this previously, raced across one of these zones together, which means they’re already pretty tight and have bonds connecting them. So, obviously, they participate in my favorite activity of all: banter. And gosh how I appreciated this, given that the book itself is dark, so these characters were kind of a light in the darkness. I cackled out loud several times when they got going.

That being said, I can’t say I particularly connected with any of these characters. Empathized with some of them, maybe, but that was about it. There wasn’t anyone I was going to particularly mourn or miss, and there wasn’t anyone I was rooting for. Then again, that’s how I feel about most characters in this genre, so it may just be a facet of the genre itself. Except Alan Grant, of course. The man was a gift, and if anything happened to him, I would have rioted. RIOTED, you hear me? Even though I was only five at the time. I knew what was good.

❧ Between the gore and the violence, this book isn’t for the faint of heart, but there’s a delightfully eerie, suspenseful atmosphere that undercuts all the action.

There’s a wonderful sort of tension, where the reader obviously knows something is going to happen. But oh, these sweet summer children here, completely oblivious, blunder along all naive and innocent. While there are instances where the book feels a bit slow (mostly towards the beginning, as it will), it’s really this expectation of waiting for the other shoe to fall that drags the reader along. And once the action starts, it never stops.

Early on, I was sucked into all the foreshadowing that promised something was about to go down … and boy did it ever. I wasn’t disappointed. Once things got going, I just couldn’t put it down.

The chapters open with little snippets of journal entry-like excerpts that do a wonderful job of building the suspense and also solidifying the world.

The foreshadowing is strong with this one. It’s all about the atmosphere, and I very much appreciated how these snippets added to that.

If we created human-free zones where nature could take over again, would you sneak into them, despite the risk?