Week 13 Reviews: The Night Children, Lockdown

From Goodreads:

Presenting a new Escape from Furnace story, "The Night Children," by Alexander Gordon Smith.

It is December 1944 and Europe is still gripped by war. In the densely forested mountains of Belgium one of the conflict's most brutal battles is raging. Cut off from the front, a ragtag group of young British and American soldiers finds itself being hunted by a patrol of elite German Special Forces, including a newly commissioned officer called Kreuz—a teenage boy who will grow up to become Warden Cross (the fearsome prison director who will one day rule Furnace Penitentiary, the terrifying underground prison specially built for teen offenders).

As both sides fight for their lives in the unforgiving terrain, however, they start to realize that there are worse things hiding in the snow than soldiers. There are creatures out there with gas masks and piggy eyes (ancestors of Furnace prison's "wheezers")—demonic entities that cannot be killed by guns and grenades, monsters who do not care what uniforms their victims are wearing so long as they bleed, and so long as they scream…

From Goodreads;

Furnace Penitentiary: the world's most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth's surface. Convicted of a murder he didn't commit, sentenced to life without parole, "new fish" Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.

Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace's deeper, darker purpose, Alex's actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

My Review:


Author: Alexander Gordon Smith
Series: Escape from Furnace #0.5, 1
Read: March 26th, 26th, 2024
Source: Ebook.bike, Own 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and they're Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2024 Books, and The Night Children is a Historical Fiction 2024 Book, and Lockdown is a 2024 Dystopia Book!
Publisher: Tor Books, Square Fish
Published: September 21st 2011, March 5th 2009

The Night Children:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Lockdown:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars