The Bridge
-
- £5.49
-
- £5.49
Publisher Description
Winner of the Text Prize
Book 1, Southside Novels
Imagine the Tomorrow series meets The Hunger Games, in a divided city where danger is real and friendship is everything.
The City is divided. The bridges gated. In Southside, the hostiles live in squalor and desperation, waiting for a chance to overrun the residents of Cityside.
Nik is still in high school but destined for a great career with the Internal Security and Intelligence Services, the brains behind the war. But when ISIS comes recruiting, everyone is shocked when he isn’t chosen. There must be an explanation, but no one will talk about it. Then the school is bombed and the hostiles take the bridges. Buildings are burning, kids are dead, and the hostiles have kidnapped Sol. Now ISIS is hunting for Nik.
But Nik is on the run, with Sol’s sister Fyffe and ISIS hot on their trail. They cross the bridge in search of Sol, and Nik finds answers to questions he’d never dared to ask.
The Bridge is a gritty adventure set in a future world where fear of outsiders pervades everything. A heart-stopping novel about friendship, identity and courage from an exciting new voice in young-adult fiction.
Jane Higgins lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is a social researcher at Lincoln University, specialising in projects with teenagers. She has worked on many human rights campaigns and is interested in astronomy, mathematics and classic science fiction. She won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing for her first novel, The Bridge.
‘The Bridge, is brilliant. Every sentence is skillfully crafted, with just enough left unsaid that the reader is always hungry for more…This is a breathtaking first novel.’ Junior Bookseller and Publisher
‘Winner of the Text Prize, this is a powerful dystopian adventure about questioning authority, the complexities of war and enduring bonds.’ Fran Atkinson, Saturday Age/Sydney Morning Herald
‘The Bridge shows how hard it can be to tell right from wrong, especially in the face of war. This page-turner and first novel is well placed for a sequel.’ Weekend Australian
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As with all memorable dystopian tales, The Bridge’s frightening darkness is balanced by the humanity of its main characters. Nik Stais is an academic superstar at Tornmoor, an elite school in a postapocalyptic city under siege by the Hostiles across the river. But when a violent conflict engulfs the academy, Nik is drawn into a dangerous mission that challenges the history he’s been taught. New Zealand author Jane Higgins’ YA novel tackles big issues like economic inequality and racism with straightforward intelligence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This grim first novel, set on a not-so-distant future Earth in a war-torn, divided city that could be Sarajevo, London, or just about any other metropolis, packs a significant emotional wallop. Nikolai Stais, an orphan, has spent most of his life as a scholarship student at Tornmoor Academy, a prestigious military school designed to produce top security officers. But while Nikolai's senior class peers are snapped up by the Internal Security and Intelligence Services, he is denied cadet status. Soon after, rebels attack the school, and Nikolai is arrested as a traitor, though he quickly escapes. When a younger friend is kidnapped and taken across the river to rebel territory, Nikolai follows, hoping to save him, and instead discovers that the history he's been taught may not be the entire truth. Higgins works hard to expose the religious and racial bigotry lurking behind so many military conflicts, and she is adept at showing that, frequently, neither side is without blame. Nikolai is well drawn and believable, though the story's secondary characters, particularly the villains, are comparatively one-dimensional. Ages 12 up.
