Blog Tour Review – Feast Of Ashes by Victoria Williamson

Hello everyone,

It is time for another Write Reads blog tour, and today it is my turn to showcase Feast Of Ashes by Victoria Williamson, an atmospheric young adult dystopian novel with a concept that immediately grabbed my attention.

This was also one of those blog tours where I was able to claim a free physical copy of the book, but that was not the only thing delivered as part of the package. It came with a matching bookmark, stickers, and most intriguingly of all, a packet of radish seeds!

Thank you very much to the author and publisher for said free copy, along with Dave @ the Write Reads for hosting the tour along with all of the wonderful fellow book bloggers who help put together schedules and the other bits behind the scenes.

Pages: 323
Published: 5th October 2023
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Content warnings: Bullying, animal death/cruelty

The Earth’s ecosystems have collapsed and only ashes remain. Is one girl’s courage enough to keep hope alive in the wastelands?

It’s the year 2123, and sixteen-year-old Adina has just accidentally killed fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-six people. Raised in the eco-bubble of Eden Five, Adina has always believed that the Amonston Corporation’s giant greenhouse would keep her safe forever. But when her own careless mistake leads to an explosion that incinerates Eden Five, she and a small group of survivors must brave the barren wastelands outside the ruined Dome to reach the Sanctuary before their biofilters give out and their DNA threatens to mutate in the toxic air.

They soon discover that the outside isn’t as deserted as they were made to believe, and the truth is unearthed on their dangerous expedition. As time runs out, Adina must tackle her guilty conscience and find the courage to get everyone to safety. Will she make it alive, or will the Nomalies get to her first?

This is a powerful and highly evocative story that brings a number of unique, well presented ideas. With a thoughtful concept and an invitingly grim degree of foreboding, it conjures a hostile dystopian world that carries an arresting atmosphere and a genuine sense of trepidation, all inhabited by a group of characters who share some fascinating dynamics.

It all takes place a century in the future as the population is sheltered from a near uninhabitable outside world by taking up permanent residence in glass domes known as Edens, built by the elusive Amonston Corporation. Right from the beginning it feels inevitable that some horrifying truths are going to come to light, and the picture gradually unravels with the help of very well written sequences of archive footage.

The structure of the book is effective, with the first part focusing on the countdown to the moment where Adina believes she is responsible for the deaths of almost 15,000 people on Eden Five. Most of the world building takes place here, and it also allows you to get a strong feel for all the main characters before the more intense action begins later. The remaining two thirds of the book is all about survival in the harsh wilderness of the outside, with Adina and her fellow survivors having thirty days to survive in their biosuits.

One of the standout aspects is how much detail goes into the more scientific and indeed dystopian parts of the story. As it progresses, there is a lot of terminology used and discovering the background of this fictional future version of Africa gave everything a whole new layer of depth. These sections were interesting to read and they help to drive the plot as much as anything else.

Everything is written in the first person from Adina’s point of view, and she is very complex, given the amount of sides to her personality that we witness throughout. We do not get that much in terms of her backstory, but in the present at least, the author captures her flaws well and that makes her a believable character in many respects.

On the one hand she has a very big conscience and can be reasonably caring, particularly towards her sister Tash. Then we have the awful way she sometimes treats Chiku, her occasional stubbornness, and how she likes to shirk her duties in Eden Five before the disaster happens. Most of this can be explained away by a certain teenage naivety, and however you feel about this, she certainly redeems herself in a big way at the end.

Indeed, the ending is one of the real high points of the book. Some of the 30-day period out in the wilds does move a tad slowly, but there is a good deal of payoff in the final chapters and it is here we see some solid character progression. There is not a cliffhanger as such but things are set up well for the sequel, with the romance sub-plot the only mystery remaining.

We generally get to know the supporting characters quite well, with Dejen and Chiku the ones that have the greatest impact. Dejen is sharp as it gets and quite the activist, but he has a heart too. Like Chiku, the prophetic Baba Waseka lives a rather sad existence, with his wailing pronouncements adding to the sense of impending doom. The only disappointment was Otienno, who was a little two-dimensional.

The setting was well realised, from the enclosure of Eden Five and its aversion to biohazards, to the threatening death trap that is the outside. Once Adina and the others escape, there is truly the risk that one of them can die at any moment, so as the reader you cannot rest easily.

Overall, a story that is memorable for both its concept and atmosphere. Any dystopian novel has to be very considered and also provide a sinister twist on the status quo, as we see here with the Amonston Corporation’s deceit and the whole idea of the Nomalies. It also clearly shows that there is so much potential for more heading into the sequels.

Victoria Williamson is an award-winning author who grew up in Scotland surrounded by hills, books, and an historical farm estate which inspired many of her early adventure stories and spooky tales. After studying Physics at the University of Glasgow, she set out on her own real-life adventures, which included teaching maths and science in Cameroon, training teachers in Malawi, teaching English in China and working with children with additional support needs in the UK. Victoria currently works part time writing KS2 books for the education company Twinkl and spends the rest of her time writing novels, and visiting schools, libraries and literary festivals to give author talks and run creative writing workshops.

Victoria’s previous novels include The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind, Hag Storm, and War of the Wind. She has won the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award 2020/2021, The YA-aldi Glasgow Secondary School Libraries Book Award 2023, and has been shortlisted for the Week Junior Book Awards 2023, The Leeds Book Awards 2023, the Red Book Award 2023, the James Reckitt Hull Book Awards 2021, The Trinity School Book Awards 2021, and longlisted for the ABA South Coast Book Awards 2023, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2020, and the Branford Boase Award 2019.

Her latest novel, The Pawnshop of Stolen Dreams, is a middle grade fantasy inspired by classic folklore. Twenty percent of the author royalties for this book are donated to CharChar Literacy, an organisation working to improve children’s literacy levels in Malawi.

---

*I was given a free copy of Feast Of Ashes in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to check out the rest of the posts in this blog tour!

Happy reading 🙂