This is not my favourite of the post apocalyptic books I have read (many), but I gave it an extra star for originality. It is a bit of a depressing read, but the characters were well formed and believable, and I found it a satisfying read. As you can tell by the number 1 used, it is part of a series but did not, thankfully, end on a nasty cliffhanger.

It is quite rare these days for me to abandon a book but I'm afraid Defender defeated me. Thank you for sending me this book but it wasn't for me.

I am a big fan of this genre and this book did not disappoint. I found the characters, Pilgrim, Lacey and Voice compelling and was behind them all the way. I have already ordered Hunted which is the next in the series.

Compelling characters, a very interesting take on a dystopian future, a very fun read. Well recommended.

Nice to see an original take on the end of the world scenario. It's always going to be a grim read, but that's what you buy into and Defender by G.X. Todd certainly delivers. Powerful, absorbing and intelligent. It's hard no to make comparisons to The Stand, but the story of Pilgrim and Lacey takes you way beyond that. Gripping and filled with suspense in a world vividly crippled by the fall of society. There are some uncomfortable scenes, but that goes with the territory. I did feel that Pilgrim was particularly well developed and hard not to like. It will be interesting to see where this series goes..

I feel that I should put my cards on the table immediately. I don’t like survivor stories where the whole world has gone to hell in a handcart. Where the survivors pit themselves against each other for possession of the vital, limited resources remaining and the worst traits of the human race become evident but are overcome by the few remaining souls who show a spark of humanity.

However, I can still appreciate prose which is well constructed and written even if I dislike the actual content and this story is very well constructed and a joy to read. Not once was I jerked forcibly from the depths of my imagination by poor grammar or syntax so for that I am very grateful.

Pilgrim is the central character and it is a story of his journey through a desolate landscape and his dealings with the people he meets on the way. Pilgrim has a voice in his head with whom he converses as he goes. The reader quickly determines that this is no ordinary voice as we would imagine when talking to oneself – this is a separate entity; a free thinking parasite. The world is now divided between those who have voices in their heads and those who don’t. Most voices insidiously persuade their host to commit suicide or murder and the evidence is on show for all to see.

The characters are well formed and described. The plot trundles along seamlessly from one scene to another. Tension is heightened by the excellent change of pace and the reader’s interest is held throughout.

So why only 3 stars?

The whole book can be likened to looking at the timeline of an individual and taking out just one section. There is no “before” and no real conclusion. Questions which remain unanswered are therefore quite fundamental. Who are these Voices? Where did they come from? Why are some destructive and others helpful? No answers are given and the story ends without any resolution. However, I enjoyed the read nonetheless despite the fact that it is just a twist on the Mad Max plots (or is this an oxymoron?).

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Grim, gruesome, deeply disturbing yet darkly fascinating, this five-part distopian action thriller is at once rich in emotion and devoid of it: There is no hiding from the horrors of a world in which people start hearing voices, voices that convince them to kill, to destroy, to end themselves en masse. Like The Lord of The Flies on a much grander, more adult scale, Defender answers the question of what would happen if the whole world fell apart, if civilisation was no more and the instinct to survive blazed far above anything else.

Sixteen-year-old Lacey knows little about this world, only that her sister and neice are out there somewhere whilst she's protected on her grandmother's out-of-the-way Texan farm. It's been three months since her grammy died. Time to find her sister. Enter the gaurded, quietly powerful Pilgrim, a man with a motorbike and more knowledge of the world than Lacey's ever had. An unlikely pairing, perhaps, but it's one that works, and soon Lacey will see far more of human nature than she could ever have anticipated.

As it progresses, Defender rapidly consumes; the author's voice becomes clear in its convictions and the chapters fly by. This future and its inhabitants are convincing, the protagonists hugely likeable and the story brimming with suspense. Shocking, sickening, sublime, this book is simply great. GX Todd has just won herself another fan. Just waiting for the follow-up.

Defender by G.X. Todd

The world as we know it has ended. Just a few short years ago the majority of people listened to the voices in their heads that instructed them to kill – friends or family, strangers on the street, and then themselves. Those who survived have learned to hate and fear anyone with a voice inside their head, and with good reason, but what they might not know is that among the survivors there are those who still hear Voice, but its new words are not what they would expect. Pilgrim lives with Voice in his head and when it tells him to stop by the side of the road and buy homemade lemonade from Lacey, a young girl with nothing but her courage and brains left, he does what he’s told.

So begins Pilgrim and Lacey’s road journey in search of Lacey’s sister and niece. Lacey insists that they’re still alive, although she hasn’t seen or heard from them in the eight years or so since the world’s fall into bloody violence. Pilgrim has nowhere else to go and so, driven on by Voice and then by another waif that they collect along the way, he takes on his new role of protecting Lacey, keeping Voice very much to himself.

Defender is the first of a series of four novels called The Voices and takes us into territory reminiscent of Stephen King’s finest novel (in my opinion) The Stand and Todd’s homage is a fine tribute. The world building is absolutely fantastic, with its long stretches of dusty road, abandoned by all but empty vehicles and the occasional solitary soul or, and these should be avoided, mysterious convoy. Houses, towns, motels are places of refuge, supplies and the utmost danger. After eight years of apocalypse a lot of things are running out. Life hasn’t yet found a way. People have become feral. This is frightening stuff, especially when you realise that one of the main characters is a young teenage girl who is having innocence forced from her with almost every step of the journey.

There is nothing safe about this new world and Defender takes us into some bleak places and situations. Predators lurk and Pilgrim and Lacey have a knack of falling into the wrong hands. This includes sexual violence which, I will admit, is not something I like to read about and so I did skim these sections while wishing that they weren’t there. To me, these scenes didn’t come with the significance or resonance I felt they would have in reality. But this is just a thing of mine and so is my fault rather than the novel’s, which has a great deal of difficult themes to contend with and otherwise does so brilliantly.

Pilgrim and Lacey are both such deeply involving characters to follow. Pilgrim in particular is fascinating and I grew very fond of him. The novel moves between the two and so we spend good time with them both. Voice has a personality of its own and it plays such an intriguing and effective role. I loved its tone and couldn’t wait to learn more of it. How characters deal with having such a voice in their heads constantly is a big appeal of the novel and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this develops in future books.

This is the first novel in a series and so there is much still to be revealed. There are rumours of other travellers, of people on the hunt for those who can hear Voice as well as much more that is barely touched on at this early stage. It leaves the reader prepared and ready for more. But there have been shocks along the way and we know that in the second novel much will have changed.

Defender finishes at a good point. There may be more to come but it is also pleasingly complete in itself and so is a very satisfying read. It’s disturbing and menacing, dusty and heated, and it is also immersive and extremely accomplished. G.X. Todd writes so well. The way she gets into the heads of her characters is wonderful and what she does with them is both shocking and thrilling. This is one of those books that does not let you put it down. It keeps you enthralled from start to finish and is a fast and exciting read. Not only is Defender the first in the series, it’s also Todd’s debut and is an astonishing one – it’s hard to imagine a better beginning to The Voices. Who knows where they’ll take us next? I’ll be listening.

Fascinating premise with excellent execution. I was perhaps not expecting just how violent the book ended up being but found it in keeping with the plot and not gratuitous. The pace was fast, keeping me well on the edge of my seat and the characterization was just enough to drag you in. Looking forward to the 2nd book in the series!

I was excited to read this debut as the author lives quite local to me, something I don’t come across often. But, in the end, I took a while to get round to it and when I finally did, it didn’t blow me away. Maybe someone from Birmingham in the UK just wasn’t able to conjure the dry, empty landscape of a post-apocalyptic Texas which I wanted. Or maybe, it’s to do with the plot. Either way, I know this book worked for a lot of people, but I struggled to connect with it the way I’d hoped to.

The premise of this novel is great – a blend of your typical post-apocalyptic theme with a touch of some more supernatural science fiction thrown in. It’s an ambitious tale, touching on themes of sanity, grief and survival.

In Defender, instead of your regular nuclear war or governmental melt-down, the world has fallen apart because normal people started doing abnormal things because the voices in their heads told them to. They turned on their friends and family, and it caused chaos.

This novel is set a few years after the initial incident; as society is has unravelled, everyone has to fend for themselves. We meet Pilgrim, a lone traveller who comes across Lacey at the roadside and agrees to give her a lift to find her sister. 16-year-old Lacey has lived a sheltered life the past few years and is unaffected by the voices, while Pilgrim has been on the road and regularly converses with ‘Voice’, a dry, witty and deprecating voice which resides in his mind.

I really enjoyed the characters in this novel – the slowly developing friendship between Pilgrim and Lacey and, later, Alex, was well-written and the way the three formed an alliance and looked after each other was touching. They come up against numerous trials and villains along the way and, whilst the villains were well-drawn as well, I just couldn’t quite believe in them. It felt a little too much like everyone was trying to kill the protagonists, and the plot meandered with little reasoning behind it. I would have loved to have read more about the Voices, the history of the situation and the meaning behind them, but perhaps this features more in the next books in the series. When I requested this novel a while before its release, I actually thought it was a standalone which I would have preferred. Perhaps this novel is really just setting up for the following three in the quadrilogy, but I’m still undecided whether I’ll read on to find out.

There is lots to enjoy in this novel – a great premise, some atmospheric prose and good character development make this a worthy debut, and I’m sure this author could do great things in the future. I just don’t think she’s hit her peak just yet.

This is a debut novel and the first in a series of four. Pilgrim is a wanderer through post-apocolyptic America. He finds Lacey, a sixteen year old girl who has been holed up with her granny since the Voices came, but now her granny has died and she wants to find other people, specifically her sister and niece. Together they head towards Vicksburg where Lacey's sister used to live, but a journey through a post-apocolyptic landscape is never going to be straightforward...
I enjoyed this book, but I am confused as to why it it labelled as horror because I do not think it belongs in that genre. For me, horror is when I am almost afraid to read on because I know something scary is going to happen. This book is violent and gory but I don't mind that because when you are reading you can imagine as much or as little of that kind of thing as you please. I don't like reading horror but I do love crime/thrillers and this book, for me, fell into the second category. I really liked the characterization - I fell in love with Pilgrim and Lacey, and Alex is a strong character too - but I did feel that the plot was a little too "ordinary" and there were some inconsistencies there. The villains are typically "villainous", the post-apocolyptic world was standard and didn't feel fleshed out, and I thought the gap between the "event" and the time of the story was too long (7 or 8 years later and there is still food to be found in abandoned supermarkets/pantries? Really?) Like some other reviewers, I would also have liked to know more about the Voices and what happened when they came (although hopefully this will be developed in later books in the series). Despite all that, this is a well written and easy to read book which I didn't want to put down, and I definitely want to know what happens next in the story so I am looking forward to book two!

It is quite rare these days for me to abandon a book but I'm afraid Defender defeated me. I am a fan of post-apocalyptic stories & Stephen King's 'The Stand' still remains in my all time top ten reads even after thirty odd years. It was the thought of capturing some of that magic that led me to choose Defender. However I just could not seem to engage with the story and eventually decided that life was too short & there are too many other books to read.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher I am sure that this will be great read for many people but it's just not for me.

I received a free eARC edition of this novel courtesy of Headline Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did, the premise itself intrigued me but I was unsure of what to expect.

What I received was a poignant story, absorbing and with a definite kick of thrill throughout. I was shocked to find how bloody and gruesome some of the scenes within it got (with violent deaths ), slightly forgetting that I had strayed away from my usual YA genres. But those scenes definitely worked within the idea of the novel. One would not expect the semi-post-apocalyptic (??) world to be full of sunshine and rainbows.

The writing had me turning pages like a madwoman, it was honestly probably the book's greatest asset, especially when things started to fall apart slightly plot wise towards the middle of the book. I have to admit I did skim-read quite a few pages, and yet I didn't feel like I was lost after returning to my normal reading manner. But that issue seemed to be resolved towards the end of the book, and I can definitely say that I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning and the end of the novel.

I liked the concept of the voice and grew rather fond of it as the story progressed and it turned out that it wasn't a totally awful thing. However, I feel like this book had very little explanation as to how these voices came to be and even less on how the human race had lost the ability to think in the first place. But I guess there will be future books, and I hope that these questions will be addressed within those.

Lacey was a pleasant protagonist, albeit slightly naive at times - but that could be explained by the fact that she was so isolated from all the problems that she later encountered and so took a while to adjust to everything. The addition of Pilgrim to the story definitely helped to develop her character, and I loved the wit and jokes that they shared throughout.

The lack of romance didn't stop me from shipping Pilgrim and Lacey (and Lacey with Alex), although simultaneously I was really glad that there were no canon relationships because it meant that the plot had no reason to stray away into realms of silly romantic drama in the midst of the whole world wanting them dead.

There were definitely a few things I didn't expect throughout. The cat is an incident that Todd will NOT be forgiven for, not until my last dying breath. There was also a plot twist that I really didn't see coming, which was commendable; it left my mind reeling a little.

I will definitely be looking to read the subsequent books when they release, and would definitely recommend this novel to fans of dystopian fiction which doesn't even try to sugarcoat the morbid reality.

My Rating: 3.75 / 5 Stars

Post-apocalyptic fiction is here to stay it would seem and this a good addition to the canon. It tells the story of Pilgrim and Lacey and their attempts to find Lacey's family in a world devoid of much of the population. There are some really original ideas here, such as that of the voices. The author chooses not to explain very much in this first installment in a series and I applaud the decision. Instead, we are left to cobble together snippets of information in an effort to form a coherent narrative thread, just like our protagonist, Lacey. The prose is clean and economical and the plotting is well paced and engaging. I found the character of Alex a little bit one-dimensional, but overall, I think this is a great read and I look forward to upcoming sequels.

In a world where the voices inside people’s heads lead to mass suicide and murder, the few that are left struggle to survive. A lone traveller comes across and young girl selling lemonade at the edge of the road. That chance meeting joins the pair together in an epic journey facing horror and violence, friendship and family, and the voices in our heads.

I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, and Defender is up there with the best. It isn’t as dark or emotional as the likes of The Road, but doesn’t sugar-coat the horror aspects either. It actually has quite a YA vibe, with a strong female heroine and playful relationships between characters, but then some very violent aspects which make it difficult to put into the YA genre. (An aspect I particularly enjoyed was the lack of romance. Romance following an apocalypse always seems absurd and unnecessary to me, but for some reason so many authors feel the need to put it in. Not Todd – thank goodness!)

I really liked both Lacey and Pilgrim. And the bad guys were good bad guys (if you get what I mean: they were evil and scary without being caricatures). I felt Alex was a bit superfluous, but I imagine she’ll be built up more in the next book. After all, this is only Book #1.

Defender is well-written, intelligent and completely absorbing. The story is heading in a really interesting direction, with lots of unanswered questions and a really well set up plot for the rest of the series, so I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book. Without giving away too much, I can tell you there are some serious ‘NOOOO!’ moments. I’m still in recovery.

Tense, unsettling, creepy, I couldn’t read this at night! During daylight hours though, I was enthralled by Pilgrim and his quietly composed demeanour. In a desolate and treacherous world, where it’s dangerous to listen to the voice in your head, Pilgrim comes across a young girl selling lemonade by the roadside; the Voice in his head tells him stop. So begins a journey to find family, friendship, hope, and ultimately answers as to why the world has gone mad, and just what are the voices that people are so afraid of. There are some vivid, disturbing scenes that only highlight the sheer menace that seems to linger just out of sight, dogging the main characters, whom I quickly became attached to. I was in turn shocked, disgusted, scared and saddened throughout the book, but did manage a few smiles during much needed lighter moments. This is an impressive debut that takes you on a roller coaster ride. Thumbs up.

Really enjoyed this book, wish it was longer, then again it is part of a trilogy! lol

I loved this book, I liked how it introduced the turn of events. I've seen a few reviews comparing it The Stand and I can see that being the case if the other books in the trilogy are as good.

(4.5 stars)
I was gripped from the beginning, and got through this book pretty quick (I had myself a narky other half who was unimpressed that the light on my Kindle was keeping him awake at midnight, whilst I refused to put this book down)! The whole world falling to pieces has potentially been overdone, but this felt new – maybe because the idea of these voices is something a little more fresh. It rang with a little bit of a Stephen King vibe to me, but less dark (for the most part – there were some dark parts) and more young adult than King’s books.
First things first, and the big point scorer for me is the characters. I am in love with them! They’re so well developed. The core characters were all fantastic in their own way, their resilience, their compassion, their wit and humour, and the unlikely friendships forming. It was wonderful to read. Even the more sinister characters were fantastically well written, and certainly gave me the creeps, in fact some of those sinister characters really just rounded the story off for me.
I loved how the world was developed. As it was Lacey’s first time venturing out, seeing the world through her eyes meant that you got to discover it as she did. This led to some fantastic world building. The wonderfully idyllic world of the house Lacey grew up in, the crumbling world that she ventured out into, it was all great.
I know I said this is more young adult friendly than Stephen King, but it’s probably still not all that YA friendly as it’s really rather dark, and occasionally gory. Please take caution reading this if you’re squeamish, as there’s some quite in depth descriptions of various injuries. Also take caution if you have a heart because this will tear it out – people get hurt, people die, and it’s not all happy endings.
I like that the ending rounded this off to a point where it could be its own story, or also could be one of several. It finished nicely but also left room for there to be more discovery and drama. I did read that there would be follow up books, which I’m very happy about and excited to read! Definitely a great book for Stephen King fans and people who love themselves dark dystopian thrillers.

**Many thanks to the publishers, Headline for a copy of this book**

https://lynns-books.com/2017/01/12/defender-by-gx-todd-voices-1/
I thought that Defender was an engrossing read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Set in a post apocalyptic world the story here was sufficiently different and well written to keep me totally absorbed.

You may notice from the book synopsis that this is a book of voices – voices inside peoples’ heads that incite them to ‘do’ things. As the story unfolds we learn that a number of years ago these voices caused some sort of mass induced suicide, people taking their own lives and more often than not those of their family too. Of course there was a massive reduction in population and as a result the world in which we currently live was changed beyond recognition and services and amenities that we take for granted on a daily basis came to a complete stop. The world now is focused into small pockets. Many people choose a lonely and remote life rather than braving the cities where larger and quite often more morally questionable groups choose to exist. Cities can be scary places full of scavengers.

As the story begins we meet Pilgrim, alone on his motorbike on a dusty highway, miles from anywhere, when he spots a sign advertising ‘fresh lemonade’ and, literally, the voice inside his head persuades him it would be a good idea to pull over. This opening is just so surreal that I was completely hooked from the get go! I was totally picturing this remote highway with a lonely farmhouse gradually developing from a dot on the horizon to, for me, the farm from the Wizard of Oz (all in glorious sepia) – I know that’s just plain strange but I thought if we could have fresh lemonade during the apocalypse why not a Kansas farm with a bubbly young girl looking for the Emerald City. Okay, so this wasn’t Dorothy! Instead we meet Lacey. Lacey was in fact living with her gran. We discover fairly quickly that she’s now alone and her plan is to leave her home and try and find her sister and her niece who she hasn’t seen since the original voices/deaths began around 8 years ago. Against his better judgement Pilgrim (or Boy Scout as Lacey baptises him) agrees to give Lacey a ride into the nearest town at which point they will part company. ‘Something, something, something’, about the best laid plans!

Now I’m not going to go too much into detail about the plot. Put basically this is a story about Lacey wanting to find her family. A quest that will put her in the way of a few of the more nasty characters out there and perhaps unsurprisingly a number of these have grown into rather wild gangs. At the same time it appears that somebody out there is trying to round up all those people that hear ‘voices’ – for what purpose, we don’t quite know. Only that this person is talked about in hushed whispers around camp fires late at night. Is this ‘pied piper’ real or urban myth? What I will say is that as soon as Lacey hitched herself a ride off her remote little farm, well, I had a bad feeling.

What did I really like about this? A number of things. I’ll start out by saying that in terms of apocalyptic books Todd isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel here. If you’ve read stories like this in the past you’ll be familiar with the broken and ghostlike setting, the survivors who constantly forage, beg, steal or worse in order to eat or survive, the fact that people have pretty quickly lost that thin veneer of civility that holds their more basic instincts in check and the grim reality of a world that has been reinvented from a very harsh mould. However, firstly, there are no zombies – I’m just saying that upfront. Secondly, although the story has a number of grim and more violent aspects to it the fact that Lacey is so incredibly naïve gives it something of a different edge. I don’t know how but Lacey’s grandmother seems to have been able to protect Lacey and keep her innocent from the outside world. It’s almost like they lived in a bubble and whilst they were aware of certain realities they managed to take a step away and carry on their own existence without too much horror touching on their little world. What this actually does is make Lacey into a character that is definitely quite unusual in this type of story. She still has a sense of humour for a start, she hasn’t witnessed any real atrocities as the book begins and she’s managed to keep relatively well fed, even though supplies were finally becoming dangerously low. Quite honestly, you can’t help but want to protect her and this is clearly how Pilgrim starts to feel too but, and I’m not saying that she minds a bit of help, but she’s also quite resourceful herself. Pilgrim. He’s a character that has looked after himself and survived alone. His instincts are sharp and he’s quite useful in a fight or tricky situation. More than this though he has his very own ‘voice’ talking inside his head making suggestions and seemingly trying to help. The banter between Pilgrim and ‘Voice’ is really quite entertaining to read. Aside from that there is the doubt that you can’t help wondering about how come Pilgrim hasn’t been ‘talked’ to death. Is this a ploy? Will there be a twist along the way? But, again, in spite of concerns about why Pilgrim seems to be getting along with his ‘voice’ you can’t help liking him. He’s one of those characters that has had to deal in bad but underneath he is still good – which is probably why he keeps himself at a distance.

Obviously we meet other characters along the way – some of them the epitome of evil, some of them just attracted to the evil in order to serve their own base needs. Others who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On top of this there is the underlying mystery of what is actually happening. Not everything is given an explanation here and a number of threads are touched upon but not finalised. I’m not complaining about this as I’m hoping it’s because there’s more in the series.

In terms of criticisms. Well, this isn’t the first time that I’ve read books with a similar idea in terms of voices (or something) being inside a person’s head – but, even so, this still holds its own. And, I feel that I must mention that this is not a YA book. There are strong scenes of violence and torture and although they’re not gratuitous I just wanted to point that out.

Overall, this was a really good read and I’m not sure this review is doing it justice to be honest, partly because I don’t want to give too much away. To recap, an apocalyptic book with a difference, mysterious voices and plenty of signs that are leading to something a lot bigger. Characters that intrigue – one in particular that I have strong ponderings over and that I’ve been thinking about since I finished reading. I look forward to Voices #2.

I received a copy through Netgalley courtesy of the publisher for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road.

The moment locks them together.

Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet.

These voices have purpose.

And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet.

I’ve said this in the past and I’ll say it again now – I have a soft spot in my heart for apocalyptic fiction. I love nothing better than a good apocalypse. Last year I read about half a dozen books that had a distinctly end of the world type vibe. The Fireman by Joe Hill, The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, and The Last of Us by Rob Ewing were all extremely good examples. Why this fascination with the end of all things as we know it? It’s simple. I am consumed with wanting/needing to know what happens next. For me, the very best examples of apocalyptic fiction suggest to us how humanity will change. It is all about questioning our place in the universe. What will we become? Will we adapt, evolve, accept and move on, or will we stumble and fall into oblivion. The latest entry onto for me to add to this is Defender by G X Todd.

The first thing you realise when you start reading Defender is that the world you are used to is now fundamentally changed. Vast numbers of the world’s population have started hearing voices in their heads that are not their own. Just imagine this happened to you. How would you cope? What if those voices made suggestions you didn’t like? What if they told you to commit violence, self-harm, even suicide? For some as yet undisclosed reason, there has been a seismic shift in the nature of humanity. Those who are left are doing whatever they can to get by. If that means taking out the competition, then so be it. What remains of society has fragmented into brutal roaming gangs and isolated individuals living under the radar. The plot initially picks up the story seven years after the voices first arrived.

I loved all the characters. Pilgrim is an enigmatic sort. We don’t know a massive amount about of his history, but he does have an internal companion, known only as Voice. Somehow though, Pilgrim and Voice have managed to reach an accord. They co-habit the same body and although Voice is quite snarky, and often annoying, they get mostly get along. When Pilgrim, and Voice, first meet Lacey she is the textbook definition of curious. She has lived a large chunk of life in an isolated farmhouse. The horrors that others have experienced are unknown to her. When she meets Pilgrim she has to grow up quickly. The wider world is now a dangerous place and her new friend can only protect her so much. The dynamic between Pilgrim and Lacey is beautifully executed. They form their own little dysfunctional family unit as they learn to depend on one another. There is also a character called Posy who is nothing if not memorable.

My favourite apocalyptic novels are Swan Song by Robert McCammon and The Stand by Stephen King. I’m going to make a bold claim. I reckon that The Voices has the potential to be right up there with these classics. Defender gets things off to an impressive start. It is hard to believe that this is a debut novel, it is so well crafted. When I started reading I rattled through the first hundred pages of the novel without a break. The characters feel well realised and the plot is so damned engaging. The novel ends on a bittersweet note. It is the mark of a skilled author when they can make a story both hopeful yet sad in the same moment. I genuinely can’t wait to see where this goes next.

When I started writing this review, I was about halfway through reading Defender and I thought I had a good idea of exactly how things were going to play out. I wrote five hundred words on my theory. I was very pleased with myself. What is that saying? Pride comes before a fall. Turns out my smugness was short lived. I ended up deleting it all. Todd’s writing offers some tantalising hints about where the voices come from but doesn’t commit to anything, at least not just yet. I realised it was wrong on my part to try and second guess what was going on. This is the first book in a series, there is no need to rush, there will be more to come.

I have a profound desire to talk to other people that have read Defender. I’d love to hear what others think. You could give this book to a dozen readers and I suspect you’ll get a dozen interpretations of how and why the voices exist.

G X Todd is an exciting new voice in genre fiction. If you’re looking for first class apocalyptic fiction that is going to engage your brain cells then look no further, you just found it.

Defender is published by Headline and is available from 12th January. Highly recommended.