Kate Macleod

This book was a really great mix of genres that made it very unique. It's primarily a Sci-Fi story set on a planet where a solar flare forces our characters to take shelter in an old underground bunker for 4 days. This turns the entire thing into a great 'bottle episode' type structure which a murder-mystery style plot as members of the group are murdered one by one and the survivors try to figure out what is going on. It's got a really great and diverse all-female cast as well, featuring a show more few 'aliens', a lesbian couple, and a woman in the space version of a wheelchair. It's also got two adorable dogs and a cat. It was a really fun read and definitely not what I was expecting. show less

MacLeod, Kate. Murder on the Intergalactic Railway: A Ritchie and Fitz SciFi Murder Mystery. Richie and Fitz No. 1. Ratatoskr Press, 2020.
Murder on the Intergalactic Railway is one of those books whose title tells you almost all you need to know. Two cadets headed to a small academy on a distant world solve a murder on their version of the Hogwarts Express. It follows the Agatha Christie model closely, except that the two cadets are no substitutes for Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. They show more are good kids, but they don’t do the kind of analytical thinking done by the Christie detectives. Perhaps the most interesting element of the novel is the train itself. It is a land-air-space vehicle that seems to be a supersized version of Doc Brown’s locomotive from Back to the Future. 3 Stars. show less

MacLeod, Kate. Under Falling Skies. Scout Shannon No. 1. Ratatoskr Press, 2017.
Under Falling Skies is a young adult novel set on a colony planet recovering from war. The planet is partially protected from deadly solar flares by a decaying orbital shield technology. Scout is a young bike messenger traveling between hard-scrabble frontier settlements. During one four-day coronal flare she takes refuge with several others in an underground bunker left over from the war. The story has a classic show more lifeboat plot in which not everyone in the shelter has the welfare of the group on their agenda. Murders happen, and the game is afoot. The central conflict between spacers and planet dwellers is not as clearly sketched as I would wish, but Scout is a likeable protagonist who carries the reader along with her as she tries to decide whom she can trust. 3.5 stars. show less

An entertaining, well-written sci-fi adventure with elements of the supernatural included .
I liked the settings and the characters in this book very much, all were well described . It was interesting from a psychological point of view too which I enjoyed . It was a young adult story but I liked it, it kept me interested until the end . I would like to read another book in this series if there are to be any .