Shannon and Rohan Scott have retreated to their family's cabin in the Australian bush to escape a virus-ravaged world. After months of isolation, Shannon imagines there's nothing he doesn't know about his older brother, or himself – until a stranger slips under their late-night watch and past their loaded guns.
Reluctantly the brothers take the young woman into their fold, and the dynamic within the cabin shifts. Possessiveness takes hold, loyalties are split, and trust is shattered. Before long, all three find themselves locked into a very different battle for survival.
Daring, stylish and sexy, Red Queen is a psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.
Red Queen, H.M. (Honey) Brown
There's an immediate dive into the here and now with the opening chapter, each of which is a self contained character study, and each chapter grouping is titled appropriately. Honey Brown touches gently on each chapter as if it were in preparation for a scene change in a film or play.
This kind of novel usually does offer up some futuristic and frightening prophecy for the future with a moral message that can't be avoided, rather like the surfer riding the wave of catastrophe. The biological concoction that is Red Queen is not explained in any great detail, so you are required to take it on board without really knowing how it is going to affect the outcome. The virus itself is not of great importance, more a means to the end of placing these people in such isolated and stressful circumstances.
Despite a couple of corny endorsements bandied about upon the release of this novel, you truly won't be up all night finishing this novel. It is only a short piece of work. Yes it is a psychological thriller and with all good reads of this kind, the plot is organically determined by the nuances and subtleties of the character's interaction. The author has straddled the fence between thriller and drama novel with this work, despite its science fiction premise. It is not a technical how-to survival novel by any means, and there's no slow march of blank eyed zombies to encounter. Australians wanting to read a disaster novel set uniquely in their home turf won't find it makes much of a difference as this novel could just has easily been set in the Canadian Rockies or some other isolated and rugged environment.
RED QUEEN is economically styled with a nice eye to the baser instincts of man in extreme circumstances. As a debut novel it serves well to introduce H.M. Brown as a new talent and will be one of those novels talked about in book clubs and readers groups with great interest.
Red Queen, H.M. (Honey) Brown
Apocalyptic scenarios are not my favourite thing. To be frank, a pandemic world-wide threat from a mutant viruses wasn't making me feel a desperate urge to read RED QUEEN. I've been shuffling other books over it in the priority queue for quite a while. But eventually, you've just got to stop sooking about these things and get on with reading.
There was some confusion in my mind about exactly what "category" this novel falls into. It won an Aurealis award for Best Horror Novel, but I'd heard comments that indicated that the book, despite the apocalyptic setting, was more of a thriller. To my uneducated mind, there didn't seem a lot of horror about RED QUEEN, but it certainly fits the thriller criteria. Set in the Australian bush, brothers Shannon and Rohan are hiding out from the effects of the virus, holed up in the ultimate survivalist paradise, set up originally by their parents, both of whom have died from the very virus the brothers are trying to avoid. They stay constantly on guard, despite which, their defences are breeched by a smart young woman who initially steals food from the cabin during the night, eventually revealing herself and asking for their help and shelter.
Once Denny arrives on the scene it's hard to avoid a sense of inevitability about the relationships. Shannon is the more sensitive, gentle brother - and he takes on the "good cop" role very quickly. Rohan is more mistrusting, taking the "bad cop" role with aplomb, right down to being the brother that Denny turns to for sexual gratification. What saves that entire scenario is the clever and subtle way that the conflict between the brothers is handled. The sexual rivalry fits into a general feeling of distrust, tension and rivalry as rules of the house are stretched, and the ever present threat from the outside world hangs heavily over all three characters. There is also the increasing pressure of if, and how, they can remain self-sufficient with every day that passes.
There is something very atmospheric about RED QUEEN, and the writing is clever. Whilst it's very descriptive, and extremely evocative it's also elegant, pared down, and without padding. Still, you can feel the tension in the air, see the glowering looks and the sideways glances. The bush and environs of the cabin come to life, even the weather feels real and very immediate. RED QUEEN is assured storytelling, clever and extremely surprising. Especially as it kept this reader involved despite some predictable plot lines, overt characterisations and the sort of happy-ever-after ending that always leaves me feeling decidedly queasy.