The Silent Skies Trilogy

Introducing the tenacious heroine of the Silent Skies trilogy.

The strong, protective heroine of the Silent Skies series, Solma is driven by love for her family, particularly her little brother.

Solma grew up in a dystopian world where food was scarce, disease was rife, and her community was under constant threat from hungry predators and wandering raiders. She's used to danger, and she knows how to face it. She's a fierce fighter, a Sergeant in her community's small military, and she's not afraid to leap into battle.

Solma's world is thrown into turmoil when she and her brother discover something that should be impossible. When a bee, long thought extinct, crawls from the ravaged earth, Solma's whole world is thrown upside-down. She struggles with how her worldview is challenged, and, though she's motivated by love, she doesn't always get it right.

Solma's story is one of transformation, enemies-to-lovers, found family, hidden magic, and confronting a dark past. If you love reading stories like these, Solma's will be a journey you'll love.

Welcome to the vast continent of Alphor, the setting for the series.

Step into the post-apocalyptic setting for the Silent Skies Series. This is the world of Alphor, where the extinction of flying insects a century before has brought the human race low. Cities fell, civilization collapsed, and now the last of humanity ekes out a desperate existence in small communities.

Alphor is a huge continent, but the human communities are thinly spread across it, and nature has reclaimed many of the fallen cities. With no flying insects, there are no wild flowers, and all crops have to be hand pollinated. But there are trees and grasses which don't rely on insect pollination, and these have become numerous.

Alphor also has fierce predators, such as redbears, wildwolves, and darkcats, which are always looking for an easy meal.

It would be impossible for most villages to produce enough food to feed their communities if it weren't for the Earth Whisperers; mysterious nomads with a strange, magical power to make plants grow. The Whisperers travel the length and breadth of Alphor, trying their best to help the villages with their crops.

You can read more about the Whisperers, and their magic, in the section below.

Learn about the powerful nature magic of the Earth Whisperers.

With survival in the post-apocalyptic world of Alphor always a challenge, many communities rely on the mysterious magic of the Earth Whisperers, who's power can make plants grow.

The Earth Whisperers are a nomadic community who travel across Alphor in small troupes, visiting the villages to help them nurture their crops.

Any child in Alphor might develop the ability to Whisper, but when their power is discovered, the Earth Whisperers will spirit them away and teach them to use their power. One of the only laws of the land that everyone abides by (or, at least, pretends to,) is that the ability of Earth Whisperers should be shared equally across all of Alphor.

Of course, there are always greedy people who want to take advantage of power where they see it, and who try to hide children with such magic from the Earth Whisperers.

There are many important Whisperer characters in the Silent Skies trilogy, and they play an important role in Solma's adventures.

Check out the tips below to find out how you can help bees and other insects in your own space.

Although the events in the Silent Skies trilogy are fictional, one thing is true: our pollinators are in trouble. Destruction of habitat, widespread use of pesticides, and swathes of land where humans grow just a single type of plant (scientists call this a monoculture,) mean that our bees and butterflies are struggling to feed, breed and thrive. Evidence suggests bees are responsible for pollinating a third of the food humans rely on. 87% of all plant life around the world relies on animal pollination. That's a lot. And the vast majority of that is achieved by a variety of insects. So what can you do to help our pollinators?

1) The simplest thing is to plant lots of pollinator friendly flowers. And don't spray them with pesticide! Don't use weed killer, don't put any chemicals or pellets down at all. Just plant the flowers and let the critters come. 

You can also work to make your garden, or any space you might have, as wildlife friendly as you can. There's some brilliant advice here for rewilding. (For those not in the UK, the advice on this site is applicable across the globe. Just make sure to focus on flora and fauna native to where you live!) If you don't have a garden, that's ok, I don't either. I've created a little pollinator haven on the Juliet balcony outside my French doors. I have a bird feeder and lots of different flowers that bees, butterflies and hoverflies love. Even a window box filled with wild flowers could be a really important feeding station for a bee. And we need these most precious of creatures. Join the movement to protect them, and other pollinators, for the future of our planet.

2) Learn as much about different species of bee and other insects as you can. Did you know that the vast majority of bee species are actually solitary? Did you know that certain species of flower have evolved to rely on certain species of bee? Did you know that bumblebee queens incubate their first brood by sitting on their eggs, like a bird? The world of bees is fascinating, and you can do a lot worse than read The Little Book of Bees by Hilary Kearne, with beautiful illustrations by Amy Holliday. Dave Goulson's recent, brilliant book Silent Earth is also an excellent source of information both about individual species of insect and the plight of insects as a whole.

3) Sign petitions and join movements to help raise awareness about the plight of our pollinators. The internet is rife with these at the moment, especially those that ask the government to mediate or ban the use of certain pesticides.

4) Write to your MP, Premier, Governor or local government and regularly demand sustainable change. We really need infrastructure and policy to adapt to our insects and ensure they are protected.

5) Join insect conservation efforts, such as bee or butterfly counting, every year. This is really important to help monitor the numbers of different types of insects and give scientists much needed data to help protect and conserve them.