Review: Desolation: The Same River Twice by D. Harrigon

I received a free copy of this book from the author in return for an honest review.

‘Hetch is finally on her way to Landing Site One. Will Marcus beat her there?

‘All the best chaos starts with a plan. Hetch had a plan. Her in a little sailing catamaran, scavenging off the land, slipping past the dangers by being all small and quiet.

‘The huge boat now chugging up the river is the opposite of quiet, and all the dangers are still there. Dangers from without. Dangers from within.

‘The boat will crash into them all.’

Desolation: The Same River Twice, by D. Harrigon, picks up soon after the events of Desolation: Keep Your Imaginary Friends Close. Bilbo the boat has set sail, taking Hetch, Veva, Pearson, Aqualina, Galetea and the Gems, plus a full crew of friends and strangers, towards the territory of the Daughters of the Iron Drum – and the elusive Landing Site One.

We get to meet a few more of the Daughters – and it turns out they’re far from sitting ducks. Nor are they the only problem our heroes face: not everyone on board is faithful to Hetch or Galetea’s cause, and when things come to a head, Hetch and co. must fight on two successive fronts.

Three books into D. Harrigon’s Desolation series, and the pace shows no signs of letting up, with new dangers, more high-stakes fights, and startling revelations at every turn.

In The Same River Twice, the author fills in outlines there was only space to sketch in the previous instalments. Now Bilbo the boat is heading fast in their direction, we can meet some Daughters of the Iron Drum on their home turf, and I really enjoyed learning about a curious alternative way of life on this godforsaken planet.

The Daughters are cultish to say the least, with their uniformly-dressed leaders referred to as “Mothers”, talk of portents, and frequent proclamations of ‘Praise Karen!’. What’s more, the members have been fed misinformation about the main colony, and not all of them are happy and unquestioning, adding another layer of intrigue and complexity.

Unlike their distant neighbours, the Daughters have developed aircraft – more dependent on weather conditions than the ones you get on Earth, but nonetheless airworthy in well-trained hands – and when reconnaissance pilot Savannah relays that there’s a big boat coming up the river, they’re quick to mobilise, and have the element of surprise on their side.

Meanwhile, aboard Bilbo, we’re reunited with assorted characters from the previous books, reminded of the secrets and tensions between them, and introduced to a few new girls, too (it takes a lot of people to keep this huge boat afloat!).

I will say, now we’re on volume three of five, we’re at a point where you’ll need to have read the previous instalments to understand a lot of what’s going on: there’s at least one development that would seem incredibly random if you’d gone in cold, and information comes out that is new to the characters concerned, but not to long-term readers.

One of these momentous revelations only comes to light as a result of a big mistake Hetch makes – a mistake that didn’t quite fit with my image of her as a character who’s laser-focussed on a single goal, though that may just be a “me” thing (96-99% of people really are that preoccupied/motivated by what?). And when she realises what she’s done, the measures she takes to make up for it are classic, endearing Hetch.

The Same River Twice adds new complexities to the Desolation series while maintaining the fast pace and heart-in-mouth moments of previous instalments.