Treachery by Shirley Bigelow Dekelver
Climate of Fire Book 2
Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeIt is 2046, a year since Vancouver was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. Taylor West, Carlie Fleming, Mai-Li Wong, and Willie Arbuckle, four young adults, and three children, twin brothers Rusty and Eddie Coleman, and Debbie, who has Downs Syndrome, lived in constant fear of the violent gangs. Making a life-saving decision they leave Little Mountain and walk to the Interior, hoping to find a better life.
The journey is fraught with unimaginable hardship and danger. Surviving a firestorm in the Wastelands, they clash with the Desert Rats, and lose one of their own. Heartbroken they continue their trek, finding an old, abandoned cabin near Mount Davis. Winter is rapidly approaching, and they decide to delay their journey until Spring. Taylor admits to Carlie he has feelings for her, but she rejects his advances, as she is unable to accept Rusty’s death. Willie is caught stealing food and is banished from the group. Realizing he might seek revenge; Taylor decides they cannot stay in the cabin, they must leave immediately.
Their progress is slow, the snow is deep and the steep mountain trails take their toll on the younger children. They arrive at Blakeburn, a deserted mining town, and meet Pete Johnson, a trapper and prospector. Pete is the Chief of the Similkameen band, who live in harmony with the Chinese people in Blackfoot, their destination. Relationships are tested time and again. Will they remain strong and what will shatter?
Love is stronger than fear.
I appreciated the character development in this book. Yes, the characters still sometimes made impulsive and illogical decisions, but they also showed signs of accepting the dangerous new world they lived in and of thinking ahead at times in order to have access to the food, shelter, and supplies they’d need to survive in it. Practice leads to progress, so I was pleased with how they’d matured since I first met them.
It would have been helpful to either have more attention paid to the romantic subplot or to not include it at all. It’s not something I thought the main storyline needed, at least at this point, and I was surprised the characters involved in it went in that direction due to the much more pressing conflicts and basic human needs they were struggling with. I would have liked to have stronger reasons to root for those two individuals to end up together. They were both interesting people on their own, I simply needed more information about why they’d be a good romantic match and why this particular moment in the timeline was the best time to go there instead of taking care of more urgent matters like having enough food and a warm, safe place to live first.
With that being said, I did enjoy seeing the characters become a found family and work together for the common good. It takes a lot of effort to look after children and people with intellectual disabilities in a setting like this, so I appreciated the descriptions of how everyone was kept (more or less) clean and fed under such difficult circumstances. That’s not something that’s always covered in this genre, but it’s one of those things I always hope to find in post-apocalyptic fiction as it would be such an important matter if something similar were ever to happen in real life.
This is the second instalment in a series that should be read in order for plot and character development reasons.
Treachery: Climate of Fire Book 2 was full of intrigue.
