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Kimberly Hill developed a love of reading when she was young, devouring classics by Camus and Dostoevsky. After college, while caring for her children and her grandparents, she turned to creative writing in her free time. She studied microbiology and chemistry.
In her free time, she trains rescue horses, watches horror movies, and considers herself a master procrastinator. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, two rescue dogs, and rescue horse.
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
The Faction by Kimberly Hill is a speculative fiction novel that revolves around a young woman named Charlotte in the post-pandemic United States where the plague has wiped out most of the population and the government has implemented a system of near-ultimate control. When Char's father, the last member of her family dies, she is left to her own devices until her phone rings, and on the other end is her ex-boyfriend, the affluent and socially connected Jake Monroe. Char accepts the offer to live with Jake and his mother Karen on their palatial estate where, for the first time in weeks, Char eats fresh food, prepared by a chef, takes a long hot shower, and slips into a beautiful new wardrobe. However, from Char's first outing with Jake to a place called The Ranch, Char is uncomfortable with the disparity between the Monroe family's lifestyle and those on the side of the street, as well as Jake's indifference to it. Still, Char remains in the lap of luxury and as time passes, her ties to Karen and Jake become tighter, and her complicity in the power the Monroes wield at the expense of the destitute is impossible to untangle herself from.
What I really loved about The Faction by Kimberly Hill is that the depiction of a woman torn between merely surviving and living without fear of starvation in comfort is a genuinely complex dilemma. Through Charlotte, it is easy to see how the choice to live according to the latter is one that most of us would probably make, and giving it up to rejoin the ranks of either the government work machine or to fend for oneself for absolutely everything—well, let's just say the moral high ground is easier preached than lived when squalor is what lay at the top of the noble mountain. Char is authentic in both her guilt and acceptance and in a genre awash with women who sleuth through shadows, raise fists, and “would never” do anything that isn't righteous, The Faction stands out because Char is relatable. She is real. And eventually, she is so far in over her head that whatever transpires outside is probably less dangerous than trying to make a graceful exit from the insular world of the Monroes because she simply knows too much. Hill's writing is tight and engaging, and her characters are fully fleshed out. Carly and Pam are exceptionally depicted and as a start to what appears to be a trilogy, I look forward to seeing where we are taken next.
