Laura Pohl Books In Order

Publication Order of Grimrose Girls Books

Publication Order of Last 8 Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Laura Pohl is a Brazilian young adult author best known for the “Last 8” series of novels. Laura was born in Braunschweig, Germany to parents with a wanderlust that had then taken them to Brazil. She spent much of her early life in Curitiba but as a thirteen-year-old, her parents moved to Sydney, Australia. It was in Australia that she started learning English as she read all young adult and middle-grade books she could find in the Marrickville Library. After a year in the New South Wales capital, she went back to Curitiba to finish her schooling. Back in Brazil, she started writing and spent some of her free time writing Percy Jackson and Naruto fanfiction and thought that she could become an author. When she was eighteen, she moved to Sao Paulo and studied Literature at the University of Sao Paulo. Pohl now works as a freelance translator and editor. Her favorite food is lasagna though she regrets that she does not know how to prepare it. She also loves dachshunds and when she is not writing she loves fangirling about Star Wars, quoting Hamilton and caps locking her messages.

Laura Pohl’s most significant influence in the writing of the “Last 8” series was “Independence Day.” She had always loved alien invasion novels and movies but “Independence Day” was her favorite movie growing up and she used to watch it over and over again. When she started writing her series, she thought that writing a novel with the same vibe would make for an interesting story. She also grew up watching and reading science fiction and so much of her writing contains influences from that period of her life. Another movie that was a big influence was “Star Trek” that she absolutely loved. Pohl loved the focus on human dynamics rather than the alien plots that many modern science fiction works emphasize. She was also influenced by “Attack the Block” as she loved the racial discussions and character dynamics and thought it was an amazing movie. “The Message” podcast that was another favorite of hers that tells of a team that is charged with decoding an alien message that originates in pace and kills anyone that listens to it. The series also has several things on nerd culture since many in her audience are from the geeky crowd.

Laura always loved writing though it took her a while to realize that she wanted to become a professional author. She started out as a fanfiction author as she enjoyed writing stories though she never believed she could make a career out of it. As a child, she loved Douglas Adams for his humor and whimsical approach to subjects such as answers to life questions. She also loved and still likes fiction with a lot of action sequences which she also incorporates into her novels. While she loved a lot of science fiction and it has had some influence, she has also gleaned from many other sources. Growing up and up to now she has never tired of exploring new technology and new worlds from the works of fiction and nonfiction authors. Laura Pohl got the idea for the Last 8 series of novels while she was at an airport going to visit her sister. Sitting on the airport lounge, she got the idea of a girl driving down the road and then striking a spaceship. The idea was that spaceships were a common thing in her world and this formed the core of her novel. She played with different ideas in her head and the story changed a bit though it essentially remained the same when it as published.

“The Last 8” is a high stakes story that features Clover Martinez a young Mexican-American teenager as the lead in a dystopian story. He is coming from the school’s science fair when aliens invade his country. The reason for the invasion is not clear until the invaders start targeting the human population. Slowly but surely, Clover is left all alone struggling to survive as all her family and friends are killed by the aliens. She is dealing with suicidal ideation and survivors’ trauma and guilt as she travels all over the US trying to find anyone that had survived the vicious attacks of the aliens. The only companion she has is her dog though she finally stumbles on a radio transmission from people she believes could be survivors. The signal seems to be coming from Area 51 and having not had contact with humans for months she hurries there. In her haste, she crashes her vehicle into the base and is seriously injured. As she is recovering from her injuries, she realizes that the eight inhabitants of the base are all teenagers. She also realizes how devastating the attack had been though the base inhabitants led by Violet their fearless leader had made every effort to prevent her from seeing the devastation. The teenagers have managed to survive so far but Clover is frustrated that they have not been fighting back. She comes up with a reckless plan to defeat the invaders and take back their homeland.

“The First 7” is a continuation of the story that started in the first novel of the Last 8 series. Following the unexpected ending of the debut novel, there are only seven teenagers left. They had come back to Earth to find that it was not as empty as they believed it was. They had been traveling across the galaxy for several months rescuing Sputnik from aliens, making friends with aliens and seeing the sights of space when they received a distress signal from a supposedly empty planet Earth. They had initially been torn about whether they needed to head back home or not but they soon find themselves in great peril and are forced to fly back home. Back on Earth, they find a planet that had experienced significant change. Their exploration of the new Earth shows that the place they have landed in has been hemmed in by a barrier that cuts across a whole state. Inside the barrier is the new human colony named Unity. One of the teenagers has been affected by an alien force that is keeping them inside the barrier and they will need to solve the crystal formations mystery if they are to find a cure. A significant theme of the novel is the hope of new beginnings and moving on from grief. When the survivors arrived on the planet, they were a cohesive tight-knit team but over time they start to fray, with factions starting to form.