While I Live: The Ellie Chronicles (review)

Ellie Linton and those of her resistance fighter friends who survived the war described in Tomorrow,When the War Began (BCCB 4/95) and its sequels are now trying to pull their lives back together in a partitioned Australia. Four months into the "peace," Ellie's ranch is attacked by border raiders who brutally murder her parents and a neighbor, leaving Ellie orphaned but still in charge of Gavin, the deaf street urchin who attached himself to her during the war. Compounding her troubles are a fight for custody of the estate, which is in shaky financial condition, and her growing involvement in a group called Liberation, which orchestrates rescues of Australians taken prisoner across the border, territory into which government troops cannot legally trespass without reigniting full-scale war. Although The Ellie Chronicles is promoted as a fresh series, prior reader familiarity with Marsden's alternative contemporary reality, its war, and Ellie's tight-knit group of scrappy comrades is, if not absolutely essential, at least strongly advisable. Fans of the previous series certainly knew that Ellie wouldn't settle down to a normal high-school routine or that peace would follow the treaty, and they'll be pleased to learn their heroine hasn't lost her touch with a pistol, a fuel tank, and a getaway cycle.