Downloading Blackout (Blackout Book 1)
After the Board came to power the world changed the way a hunter stalks its prey: all paranoia and imagined flickers of shadow, so that while you were being torn to pieces you were still wondering whether you were overreacting.
For 16-year-old Skyler, fear is a way of life. For three years, since the Wall split the UK in two, her survival as an illegal Northern refugee in the South has been a perilous balancing act between staying in the shadows and clinging to her reputation as the South's best hacker.
Fellow refugee Mackenzie is a ghost from her past she'd rather ignore. But when their paths collide unexpectedly, Skyler sees an opportunity to exact revenge on the brutal regime that destroyed her home and family - even if it means she goes down with them.
Forced, with extreme reluctance, on the run together, Skyler and Mackenzie, along with enigmatic contract killer Angel, must find a way to outrun not only the Board and the South's most sadistic crime lord, but their own personal demons. If they can manage to not end up murdering each other in the process, that'll be a bonus.
But more is at stake than any of them realise. And Skyler, who has long believed she has nothing left to lose, is about to discover just how wrong she is.
Shortlisted for the 2016 Mslexia Children's Novel Award, Blackout is a story of resistance, friendship and survival.
Content & Trigger Warnings
The BLACKOUT duology is set in a near-future dystopia and addresses a number of themes and issues that readers may find distressing or triggering. I encourage readers to please be mindful of your own needs and exercise self-care.
BLACKOUT content and trigger warnings
- Viewpoint character with OCD (fears of contamination/ depiction of associated rituals and obsessive worries/intrusive thoughts about contamination and harm to others)
- Multiple and sometimes prolonged scenes of physical violence, threat and critical injury
- Themes around domestic abuse, emotional abuse and coercive control
- Multiple characters affected by traumatic bereavement of family members (from illness and violence)
- Brief, non-graphic references/allusions to historical sexual abuse
- One scene depicting sexual harassment of a viewpoint character
About Kit Mallory
Kit has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen. Kit Mallory lives in Bath, UK, and writes YA speculative fiction about underdogs, kickass girls who like to kiss other girls, and mental health. Her debut novel Blackout was shortlisted for the 2016 Mslexia Children's Novel Competition and longlisted for the 2016 Bath Children's Novel Award. She was almost certainly a mermaid in a former life. When she’s not writing, she can generally be found in the sea or on the moors.