Review Daybreak (A Dark Age Dawning Novel) by Ellen Connor
It’s been twelve years since the Change, and Penelope Sheehan is one of the few still practicing magic for the good of humanity in this dark, dangerous world. But she needs the help of a shapeshifter named Tru, whom she knew when he was a troubled boy. But Tru is a creature of instinct and impulse, living only to satisfy his senses- ignoring the scarred heart nobody has ever reached. Fighting alongside the last holdouts of humanity, they will unleash a passion that tempts them to risk everything for love. But if they succeed, Tru and Pen hold the power to brighten the Dark Age for all time.
Daybreak is the third in the Dark Age Dawning novel, a series that well is like our world, after a major event, that causes witches, magic and shapeshifters to become along with zombies, vampires, and well the inevitable killing and enslaving of the remaining humans. So the important thing to note here is… This series is seriously awesome.
Truthfully, I don’t know that I’ve read a futuristic post-apocalyptic world thats been better written then this. Its rich, vivid, bleak, desolate, with little pockets of hope that usually surround the characters, who are always fighting for survival, there’s honor among the survivors, honor among the thieves, it reminds me of Hemingway, in the sense that its a vastly imperfect world thats written honestly and with beauty even in its deepest darkest most desolate points.
Its like a Florence and the Machine video, its bold, powerful, even when its discussing the darkest of things it can move you to cry while you sit there and admire its beauty and strength. Ms. Connor’s writing is unapologetic, she doesn’t censor. When Tru is being a bastard, he is really being a bastard. He appears to us to take down a convoy so he can have his choice of the women, the most submissive, the prettiest, so he can chose to give them a chance to live with him for a while, get fed, get fucked, then get lost. He’s a predator pure and simple and Ms. Connor writes him that way.
Penelope hates who she’s become. She is joan of arc in this new world, and the mantle of being the symbol of purity, power, saving grace and faith is way to heavy for her. She is looking to go out in a blaze of glory, if this was a different novel I’d call it suicide by cop while saving thousands of lives. Even the mecca she is searching for, she’s constantly worried that its not real, as she has heard voices and seen people, and has more magic than anyone else on record or in history, she is constantly terrified she’ll lose control and kill everyone around her, mainly because its happened before.
Ms. Connor also subtly discusses some serious issues in this novel, slavery, indentured servitude, child warriors, the idea of a mecca, the idea that a military solution is never a good one, there’s so many different complex issues that she brings to life with a deft light touch a slight of hand so subtle that you almost miss it as you’re reading it. Its Masterful.
The characters are complex, one minute I was siding with them, the next wishing they’d do something else, wanting to fight them, fight with them… Daybreak made me want… want to read more, want to see more, want more of this world and its just fantastic. Not one character is without flaw, without complexity, not one character is all good or all evil, everyone is human even when they’re not.
The romance between Pen and Tru is not the focus, its a tool to get Pen where she needs to be and to get True to be the man he is supposed to be. Is used the right way, as a part of the story instead of the focus of it.
Ms. Connors novels need to be focused on because they are simply wonderful. Fantastic, imaginative, overwhelming, awe-inspiring, all encompassing, there aren’t enough adjectives.
Overall Rating; A
