by Tim Lebbon

Titan Books, out now

A few years in the future, nature has been allowed to run wild in certain areas – inevitably making them very attractive to certain people…

Tim Lebbon’s new novel is one of those you need to set time aside to read in one go: he’s got that addictive way of writing that means you come to the end of a section, and you have to go on to the next because you need to know what’s going to happen. That’s not to say that this is a non-stop actionfest, although there’s plenty of that as the book develops; the characters he presents are ones we want to know more about, and care for as things start to go wrong. Very badly wrong.

Lebbon brings his own love of endurance running to the story, making even the most starchy of couch potatoes vicariously experience the thrills and the challenges. It’s set against a background – carefully developed in the epigraphs at the top of each chapter – of climate change and ecological disaster, making the reader uneasily conscious of the path we are slipping down at present, but never falls over the line into being preachy.

There are some moments of pure body horror and there’s an escalating sense of tension throughout the book – Lebbon somehow manages to make the outdoors close in around the characters, and in an odd way it’s a relief when things come to a head.

Verdict: A tense eco-thriller with a cinematic scope, built around relatable characters. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Read our interview with Tim about Eden here

Click here to order Eden from Amazon.co.uk