CONQUEST by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard


Book 1, The Chronicles of the Invaders Trilogy

Earth is on the brink of another Civil War. This time the enemy is the Illyri, a race of intelligent aliens who have mastered space travel using worm holes. They arrived on Earth just over sixteen years ago, breaking down infrastructure and quashing the military efforts of ever country, making this their new home. They say they want to live in peace, side by side with humans, but the human race isn’t going to go down quietly.

Syl Hellais, daughter of Lord Andrus – the Illyri governor of Britain and Ireland – was the first of her kind to be born on Earth. On her sixteenth birthday she’d hoped to head out and explore the village near their home but a string of violent attacks has her father in and out of political meetings. With that in mind, Syl is told to stay inside where she’s protected, an instruction she immediately sets about ignoring.

Syl’s little trip almost becomes fatal for both herself and her best friend. A number of explosions ring out around the village but the young Illyrians find themselves protected thanks to two human brothers, Paul and Steven Kerr. The brothers believe the girls are human and quickly drag them to safety. When they meet again, Paul and Steve have been convicted of terrorist attacks and are set to be executed.

This first in a new series from John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard is definitely a different animal from what readers might expect of Connolly. It’s an overall fantastic start to a new science fiction series, one I believe will easily appeal to teen audiences as well as adults. (It does seem the series is being promoted as an adult one here in the States but is noted as “One of Amazon UK’s best young adult books of the year.”)

There’s a great deal of information introduced here – lots of setting the scene for the series as a whole, introducing the Illyri, their politics, their science, etc – and while Conquest may not stand well on its own (there’s a bit of a cliffhanger ending), it does serve as a captivating kick off.

There’s no word just yet on when the next title will release but I am absolutely dying to read it!

3/14 Becky Lejeune

CONQUEST by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard. Atria/Emily Bestler Books; First Edition edition (February 11, 2014). ISBN 978-1476757124. 448p.

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