#BlogTour @The_WriteReads-‘The Green Withered’ by Kristin Ward

About the book…

They tell me the country looked different back then.

They talk of open borders and flowing rivers.

They say the world was green.

But drought swept across the globe and the United States of the past disappeared under a burning sky.

Enora Byrnes lives in the aftermath, a barren world where water has become the global currency. In a life dominated by duty to family and community, Enora is offered a role within an entity that controls everything from water credits to borders. But it becomes clear that not all is as it seems. From the wasted confines of her small town to the bowels of a hidden city, Enora will uncover buried secrets that hide an unthinkable reality.

As truth reveals the brutal face of what she has become, she must ask herself: how far will she go to retain her humanity?

This dystopian YA read is the first in a planned series, which can be tricky to navigate, as how does an author write a self contained story,yet set the scene for the following novel?

Kristin totally pulls it off in ‘After the Green Withered’, where she not only makes a believable not too distnat future, builds worlds and characters that the reader can totally invest in, especially main character Enora.

I love dystopian books and the longer I live, the closer I feel we are to an end of world event, and this premise is so totally relatable as humanity, every year, uses the world’s resources and ends up in deficit earlier each year.

Water, and land are precious resources we seem keen on depleting , however, using Enora’s arc of being told to be someone whilst fighting to be the person she wants to be, is so relatable. It explores environmental concerns whilst not being heavy handed with it and is tonally rich and resonant.As with the most readable dystopian novels, it’s raising consciousness whilst there is still time to change the consequences of our actions.

Enora sees both sides of the situation from her underprivilged, small town upbringing to being a member of the elite and this journey makes her questions her morals, her ethics and her societal obligations.

Which side will she support and what is the greater good for all, not just a chosen few?

Read ‘After The Green Withered‘ to find out!!

About the author…

Kristin Ward has loved writing since middle school but took thirty years to do something serious about it. The result is her Best Indie Book Award-winning novel, ‘After the Green Withered’, followed by the sequel, ‘Burden of Truth’.