By Ann Kelley (author)
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An innocent adrift in a world ripped apart by greed and want...The year is 2137, but the people of Eden are reduced to living in medieval fashion. The human race is deeply divided and the world has been brought to its knees by the Oil Wars and rising sea levels. Flora is trying to hold on to her humanity as her world changes forever.
She had made me envious. Strange as it might seem, I had not known envy before. Surely there must be other ways of living, I thought, not hand-to-mouth, alone, in a draughty old shack looking out at the same scene, day after day. Was this to be my future?
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It's 2137, and the future's dark. Sixteen-year-old Flora is scraping out a humble living, selling homegrown supplies from her late grandparents' run-down Shell Shack and keeping her illegal copy of Pride and Prejudice hidden from the terrifying Uzi soldiers. But Flora's life changes when she meets Li-li, the daughter of a powerful Rice Lord.
Flora is seduced by the lavish lifestyle of her rulers, but also sees the brutality that underpins their lifestyle. What choices will she face on her last days in Eden?
Costa Award winning author Ann Kelley's disturbing vision of the future has much to say about our own times. It's a disturbing, compulsive read that makes you realise that not so very much needs to shift for this to happen here. Helen Dunmore
The author as artist evokes people and places with delicacy, humour and truth - a novel of outstanding beauty. Costa Award Judges
Ann Kelley is a photographer and prize-winning poet who once nearly played cricket for Cornwall. She has previously published a collection of poems and photographs, a book of photos of St Ives families and an audio book of cat stories.
She lives with her second husband and several cats on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall where they have survived a flood, a landslip, a lightning strike and the roof blowing off. She runs courses for aspiring poets at her home, writing courses for medics and medical students, and speaks about her poetry therapy work with patients at medical conferences. THE BOWER BIRD , like the first Gussie book, THE BURYING BEETLE , is written in the first person present tense – and is, in part, a stream of consciousness. Not a lot happens, but Gussie is sieving knowledge and ideas in her head and the reader gets to see how her mind works. Her life, although limited by her illness, is a full, exciting life, full of wonder and glee about everything she experiences. From the author: "My son, Nathan died in 1985, aged 24, a week after a heart and lung transplant. He had a rare congenital heart defect – pulmonary atresia – the lack of a pulmonary artery.
"A clever lad, a scientist, he knew he had a short time to live but he lived every day to the full in the only way he could – studying, learning and with humour. He was a self-taught fish pathologist – an ichthyologist. He actually discovered two cancers in fish when he was 16; they are registered in his name in the Smithsonian Institute and he studied Pathobiology at Reading University and then Space Science at UCL, before he became too ill to continue.
"Gussie isn’t my son. She is an amalgamation of several people – my daughter, my grand-daughter, my son and me – and she is mostly herself, an odd, funny bookish child, eccentric and thoughtful – a one off, as Nathan was.
"But she is also the embodiment of many children who bravely find a way to live through health and emotional problems.
"My son knew that even with a successful transplant, in those days he would only have had a few more years. But he was so happy to have been given that chance.
"I think that is why I write about Gussie – to make people see the importance of being an organ donor."
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She had made me envious. Strange as it might seem, I had not known envy before.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Last Days in Eden and determined it is suitable for children aged 13-18 years old
Last Days in Eden features in the following genres: Featured Books for Young Adults, Recommendations, Recommended Children's eBooks, Featured Books for 13+ readers
Hardback, Ebook. £8.99, down from the £9.99 cover price. Temporarily Out Of Stock.
Last Days in Eden was written by Ann Kelley and published by Luath Press Ltd
Last Days in Eden has 221 pages
£8.99, reduced from £9.99. Temporarily Out Of Stock.
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