Rebecca Bryn’s Where Hope Dares is an optimistic dystopian story of courage, hope and unbreakable love. Set five millennia in the future, in a time of war and political turmoil believed by some to herald the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, Kiya, a naïve village healer, is kidnapped to fulfil an ancient prophecy and marched over the High Atlas Mountains to the stronghold of Velik, a power-crazed high priest. Raphel, her storyteller husband, is determined to bring her home. He looks to his old friend, Abe, for help, but can he trust him? Abe is a member of a secret brotherhood and has his own agendum concerning the Son of God. The unlikely, and only, alternative source of assistance is Alaric, the vicious murderer who raped and abducted his wife.

Where Hope Dares demonstrates that Rebecca Bryn is a writer of considerable talent. Every character, important or minor, is well-drawn and believable: no mean feat when gentle Raphel must dig deep for courage and egotistical Alaric is challenged to change the beliefs of a lifetime. The reader is gripped from the moment Abe, presented as a poor pedlar, comes across a brutal parody of Christ’s crucifixion; his words “My God, why? Strike me! The fault is mine not theirs” echo Christ’s own words “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” with a clarity that jumps from the page. Feelings are only part of the attraction of this book. It is jam-packed with action, from wild horseback gallops to a ship in grave danger when it is fog-bound at sea. For readers interested in the ecological scenario against which Where Hope Dares is set, there is an excellent Afterword by Philip Stephen Knight BSc.