Recent Reads: Crossfire by Malorie Blackman

My review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Crossfire by Malorie Blackman is the fifth book in the Noughts and Crosses series.  I had heard of Noughts and Crosses before, and so read it, and the second book Knife Edge, before reading Crossfire.

Which does mean I haven't read books 3 and 4.  I figured I would see how much I was missing out on the story in this fifth book, and it turns out I was missing quite a lot!

When asked why she wrote Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman has said on her website:

There wasn’t any one thing. It grew out of a lifetime of experiences. Some of the racist incidents in the book were based on real events from my own childhood. And I also wanted to play with the idea that ‘history is luck’ to a certain extent. What if Africans had invented trans-oceanic travel and colonized Europe and America? Or what if the Aztecs and Incas had ‘beaten Cortez to the punch’ and converted the Catholics in Spain and Portugal at the point of a sword? You put all that together and you have the germ of an idea which led to Noughts and Crosses.

Noughts are the minority, previous slaves of the Crosses.  We are shown the every day racism of a world that is in the 21st century, and trialing integrated schools. 

Noughts and Crosses is the story of Sephy, a Cross, and Callum, a Nought, and their doomed love.

Crossfire is bringing us up to date, and is set 18 years after the 4th book. Malorie Blackman has said that she felt like she had to write it due to Brexit, and you can also find Windrush references.

In Crossfire, we have Sephy's son, Troy, and Libby, a Nought, who are kidnapped, and each thinks they know why.  Callie Rose is a lawyer, and is to defend the first Nought Prime Minister from the charge of murder.

I did enjoy the story, and the characters, but I did also feel like I was missing out on quite a lot of references to things going on, so read this when you've read the previous four to get the full enjoyment out of it!  The end is also a cliff hanger, just to prepare you!

Crossfire was published on 8th August 2019,  and is available to buy on Amazon  and on Waterstones.  I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

You can follow Malorie Blackman on Twitter, or through her website.

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin Random House (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!