The Awakened

My name is Sam. I am nothing special but apparently if I don’t wake up, both this world and that other one will be destroyed. Nice One! All I wanted was to disappear into my own world and be left alone. But, No! Even THAT was taken away from me. Well just wait. You want me to fight? I’ll show you “fight.” You took the most important thing in my life away from me, and now I am coming for you. Hidden away in your mountain stronghold, even the rocks around you will not stop me getting to you. You started this war. I am going to finish it! Seventeen year old Sam just wants to be left alone! He has enough to cope with in his invisible, suburban, existence without having some fantastic and, frankly, unasked-for, alternate reality drop into his life asserting that he has powers beyond his wildest dreams. And that unless he does something, both his world, and that of Muanga-Atua, will come to a horrible end. A terrifying episode one blustery night may be enough to start to erode the impregnable shell he thought he had built up around himself. A shell, not to keep others out, but to keep the rage in. Could he afford, as was the norm now, just to do nothing? Julian Cheek’s captivating debut novel is a compulsive read for all those who battle every day with the simple task of just wanting to be heard.