Ashes (Ashes Trilogy Series #1)

by Ilsa J. Bick, Katherine Kellgren (Read by)

Overview

It could happen tomorrow....

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions. Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom, a young soldier, and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it's now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Author Lisa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a world that could be ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501281914
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	08/11/2015
Series:	Ashes Trilogy , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Katherine Kellgren has recorded over seventy-five audiobooks, including winners of the Audie Award, the American Library Association’s Odyssey Honor, the Earphones Award, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and ForeWord magazine’s Audiobook of the Year. She was named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year for 2008, and in 2009 received the Audie Award for Best Solo Narration – Female. She has appeared onstage in London and New York, and is a graduate of The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Editorial Reviews

Bick delivers an action-packed tale of an apocalypse unfolding, launching a trilogy with flair. While camping in a national park in Michigan, 17-year-old Alex, a girl coping with a brain tumor and the side effects of its treatment, survives a series of electromagnetic pulses that may have taken out the entire world. Miles from nowhere, she hikes with new companions—an obstinate eight-year-old orphan named Ellie and a young soldier named Tom—as they try to make sense of things. Aside from wrecking their equipment, the pulse has killed most adults and morphed young people into psychotic flesh-eating monsters that are soon dubbed the Changed. Alex is different, too (her formerly dead sense of smell is now nearly supernaturally strong), and the companions worry about their own potential to "Change" as they attempt to find other survivors. Bick (Draw the Dark) doesn't shy away from gore—one woman's guts "boiled out in a dusky, desiccated tangle, like limp spaghetti"—but it doesn't derail the story's progress. If readers have any complaint, it will be with the ending, which only sets up the next book. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Bick has a winner with this series and your students, including reluctant readers, will love it." —starred review, Library Media Connection

From the Publisher

Gr 10 Up—Ilsa Bick sets the stage for an evocative, chilling, and brutal trilogy with her apocalyptic tale (EgmontUSA, 2011). Alex, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, has retreated into the wilderness when an electromagnetic pulse flashes through the sky, destroying all electronic devices and computer systems and killing many people. Even worse is the fact that some of the kids that remain have been "changed." They are now brainwashed and have an appetite for human flesh. Alex bands together with two other survivors—Ellie, and eight-year-old girl, and a soldier named Tom. Adventure ensues as this makeshift family tries to survive the harsh winter and avoid running into any of the "changed." After arriving in a town of organized survivors, Alex finds herself torn between choosing her own destiny and taking the safety offered to her. Characters are well drawn and believable as they try to theorize what has happened. Fans of Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" and Michael Grant's "Gone" series will appreciate the eerie feel of this novel and the vivid, gruesome imagery. Katherine Kellgren's stellar performance brings energy and intensity to the narration, giving all the characters distinct voices. A must-have for all young adult collections.—Rebecca Flannery, Lyman Memorial High School, Lebanon, CT

School Library Journal - Audio

For fans of postapocalyptic and horror fiction, Bick has created a story of equal parts intrigue and gore. The first of a trilogy, ASHES begins with a sudden electromagnetic pulse that wipes out the power grid and kills people by the thousands. Katherine Kellgren narrates the tension-filled action at a lightning pace and creates a range of vocalizations that at times border on the grating. Protagonist Alex finds herself with an 8-year-old girl to watch over, a newly acquired super-sense of smell, and an uncertain path through the destruction, which involves the discovery of others who have been “spared” and a fight to the death against flesh-eating zombies. The author’s frenetic characterization of Alex is tempered by Kellgren’s ability to draw the listener into each scene. E.A.B. 2012 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile

When civilization ends and you're faced with an army of face-eating, nuclear-mutant zombies, having a brain tumor doesn't seem so bad.

Alex, orphaned, 17 and dying, decides she's sick of pointless chemo. She bugs out of school for a backpacking trip in the wilderness, determined to make her own end. Just a few days into her trip something terrible happens: A horrible, screeching pain knocks her senseless, kills an elderly backpacker and sends scores of dead birds falling from the sky. Wild dogs in the area seem to have run mad, and did Alex actually see two teenagerseatingan old woman? Along with two fellow survivors—bratty middle schooler Ellie and Tom, a young soldier on leave—Alex seeks safety. Alex and Tom are both outdoorsy, but for every cache of weapons and MREs they find, another horrible event takes place. Their gun-toting survivalism only keeps them safe for so long in a post-apocalyptic America in which most of the other young people have been Changed to cannibals. The requisite creepy cultist village raises excellent questions of trust and society. Alex can't survive on her Glock alone; she needs supplies, knowledge, allies and affection.

Splendidly paced apocalyptic zombie horror ends with a thrilling, terrifying cliffhanger and a number of unresolved mysteries.(Horror. 12-15)

Kirkus Reviews