False Flag by Rachel Churcher @ @rararesources #bookreview

I am delighted to share my thoughts for False Flag by Rachel Churcher. This is #2 in the Battleground series. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for my spot on the Blog Tour and also to Rachel Churcher for my e-copy of the book.

Let’s see what is is about…

Ketty Smith is an instructor with the Recruit Training Service, turning sixteen-year-old conscripts into government fighters. She’s determined to win the job of lead instructor at Camp Bishop, but the arrival of Bex and her friends brings challenges she’s not ready to handle. Running from her own traumatic past, Ketty faces a choice: to make a stand, and expose a government conspiracy, or keep herself safe, and hope she’s working for the winning side.

The Battle Ground series is set in a dystopian near-future UK, after Brexit and Scottish independence.

Purchase Link: HERE

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, so I was looking forward to seeing what happened next. I started reading and thought ‘hang on, this sounds familiar and yet different!’. It is the same timeline as the previous book but from a different perspective and it worked really well for me.

This is a Young Adult dystopian book that is set in the near future, post-Brexit. The series pits ‘terrorists’ against the government, but it is not as basic as that, nothing is black and white in the series.

In False Flag I discovered, as I have mentioned, a similar story to the first book. The timeline and the people are the same, but it is from the perspective of the trainers in the Training Camp. The camps are for 16 year olds recruited from schools, the trainers are basically there to kick the newcomers into shape.

I liked the perspective reversal a lot as it challenged my thoughts that I had built up from the first book. Originally I thought Ketty was a glory hunting bully, and yes while she is a bully there is something more to her. I started to reassess her cold hearted persona and discovered reasons and motives in her.

Reading this book was a retelling of the first and it gives the reader a chance to sit on the proverbial fence and see things from both sides. For a book aimed a YA Readers it gives definite food for thought and is a way to challenge preconceptions and that there is always two sides to a story.

This is again a fast paced book that is full of action conspiracy and has a challenging reader dilemma. I liked the way Kitty his put on the spot on several occasions and has to not only think on her feet, but also think about herself.

Another great read that had me thinking about how I originally saw and thought of the characters. Can’t wait to see what the author has lined up next, or which way she is going to go. It gets a Definitely Recommended from Me.

If you want to see my review of Battleground #1, then please click HERE.

Rachel Churcher was born between the last manned moon landing, and the first orbital Space Shuttle mission. She remembers watching the launch of STS-1, and falling in love with space flight, at the age of five. She fell in love with science fiction shortly after that, and in her teens she discovered dystopian fiction. In an effort to find out what she wanted to do with her life, she collected degrees and other qualifications in Geography, Science Fiction Studies, Architectural Technology, Childminding, and Writing for Radio.

She has worked as an editor on national and in-house magazines; as an IT trainer; and as a freelance writer and artist. She has renovated several properties, and has plenty of horror stories to tell about dangerous electrics and nightmare plumbers. She enjoys reading, travelling, stargazing, and eating good food with good friends – but nothing makes her as happy as writing fiction.

Her first published short story appeared in an anthology in 2014, and the Battle Ground series is her first long-form work. Rachel lives in East Anglia, in a house with a large library and a conservatory full of house plants. She would love to live on Mars, but only if she’s allowed to bring her books.

Follow Rachel on – Twitter – Instagram – Goodreads – Blog

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