With Elsa and her friends now safely in Canada, there is a chance for them to take stock and reassess their strategies to take on the might of GreenCorps, the mega-corporation now in control of their homeland. It is time to inspire the oppressed to rise up and fight. It is time to rejoin the rebels and strike against the corporatocracy with a series of guerilla raids on GreenCorps and the seed banks under their control.

REBELS AND SAINTS: CATCHING FREEDOM is a worthy conclusion to Lena Gibson’s excellent Train Hoppers trilogy. With her world-building established in the preceding novels, the writer focuses on character with chapter-by-chapter split narratives that gradually coalesce into a thrilling and satisfying denouement.

As in the previous books, the dark shadow of an oppressive regime looms large. This is a land of bleak towns where “there were no parks, green spaces, or trees, except a few leafless barren ones on the hillside by the mansions where the rich lived.” In this book, Gibson focuses on the stories of new characters. Janna (sold into prostitution by her brother) is introduced in a harrowing train journey where she is locked up with other captives, treated worse than an animal; her “fear and frustration grew as fast as the miles from home stretched farther.” The vagabond couple Mason and Caitlyn’s wanted posters still hang with their vague likeness and meagre one-gold-coin bounty, which is more than enough to keep a GreenCorps soldier on high alert. Clark hides amongst the peaceful Saints in their bucolic haven, but then is gradually drawn back to working with the Rebels.

Gibson is a solid writer, able to switch from pensive moments of reflection to dynamic action sequences. The parallels with our contemporary climate crisis and the overreach of mega-corporations are always present but never overplayed. It’s a page turner with a message—or perhaps a warning—of where the world may be heading. Amongst the desolation there are, quite literally, seeds of hope. Dark clouds are parting on a new Edenic vision of how the world once was, and how it could be again.

REBELS AND SAINTS: CATCHING FREEDOM is a dystopian thriller driven as much by hope as by despair. Skillfully plotted and carefully paced, this much-anticipated finale to the Train Hoppers saga will thrill Lena Gibson’s loyal readers.

~Kent Lane for IndieReader