Thunder ~ Review

Thunder
The Stone Braide Chronicles 1
By Bonnie S. Calhoun

Determined to prove her worth to her father and her older brothers, Selah is determined to capture a Lander.  She's been warned to stay away from the beach and away from Landers.  But she can't stay away on this the eve of her eighteenth birth remembrance.  But little does she realize that this simple act of disobedience is about to forever alter her life.

More than a century has passed since the Time of Sorrows.  In that time few outside the Mountain have had dealings with those within.  The Company is secretive and hidden from the outside world, but they want Landers and they are willing to pay for them.  And unless Selah can get rid of the Lander mark she woke up with she will soon be hunted down like a Lander and sold.

Landers are of importance only if they retain their markings and their memories.  But Selah has no Lander memories so why is she now marked?  Determined to steal back the Lander she captured before her brothers sell him, Selah sets out towards the Mountain.  Can she get Bodhi Locke away from her brothers or will the truths about her new identity be lost to her forever?

Thunder is a set in the future.  The world as we know it has been destroyed and yet humanity has survived.  But the very tendencies that brought about this destruction still exist within the hearts of those who survived and their offspring.

Dangers exist both within the Mountain and without, the question is which danger is the greater risk to those who are hunted?  And who or what are Landers?  These marked people have abilities (both mental and physical) that are beyond what is considered normal.

Fans of dystopian or speculative fiction should enjoy this new series. In a world destroyed by the very people who called it home a new civilization of survivors has grown up amid the destruction. And in this world various groups are vying for supremacy.  Will the errors of the past be repeated or will the knowledge that the Landers possess change everything?

I for one can't wait for book 2 Lightning (Fall 2015) and the answers it may reveal or raise.

I was provided a copy of this book by Revell in exchange for my honest review.

About the Book:

The Time of Sorrows is long past.

The future of Selah and her people is shrouded in mystery.

And the clock is ticking.

Hidden in the tall grasses along a shore littered with the rusted metal remnants of a once-great city, a hunter crouches. It is the eve of her eighteenth Birth Remembrance and high time she proves to herself and her brothers that she can stand on her own two feet. Selah Rishon Chavez waits not for game but for one of the small boats that occasionally crash against the desolate shoreline. Because inside one of these boats she will find her quarry--a Lander.

These people from an unknown land across the ocean are highly prized by the Company and bring a good price--especially if they keep the markings they arrive with.

Everything falls to pieces when the Lander whom Selah catches is stolen by her brothers, and Selah wakes the next morning to find the Lander's distinctive mark has appeared on her own flesh. Once the hunter, Selah is now one of the hunted, and she knows only one person who can help her--Bodhi Locke, the Lander her brothers hope to sell in the Mountain.


With evocative descriptions of a strange new world that combines elements of disturbing scientific advances, devious political conspiracy, and survival in a hostile wilderness, Bonnie S. Calhoun weaves a captivating tale of a society more like our own than we may want to admit. From the tension-laced first scene to the captivating last page, Thunder is an epic journey into the heart of humankind that explores how far we are willing to go when we're pushed to the limit.