How far would you be willing to go for a loved one? What would you sacrifice? Sometimes doing the right thing is not always the easy way and in a world that has already gone to well... does it really matter? This complex story shows some very realistic characters and some pretty descriptive details, but in the end it leaves a dark look at what humanity is capable of.

Unfortunately I DNF’d this title before the pub date. Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an ARC.

Before the EMP storm, police officer Jim Parker protected and served. Now, in this dystopian look at earth after a huge EMP burst which has disabled almost everything, he must fight to find his daughter.

I received this book for free from Netgalley/author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.

When I requested this book, I did not know it was the second book.

So before I read this one, I had to read book 1.That is why it took a minute to get to this book.

I did enjoy this post-apocalyptic thriller. I have really gotten into thrillers lately. I think the author did a good job on the world building. This book was a bit dark at times but that is why I think it really pulled me in. I look forward to reading other books by this author in the future. A book very well written.

I have struggled to hang on to the story but I particularly like the netgalley site for allowing me to read this book.

We find Jim Parker, a police officer who puts himself in danger for the good of the citizens. With his friends Finn and Ava he goes to find his missing daughter Sara. Except that she gave up being saved. She was kidnapped by an organization vineyard.

A captivating story with endearing characters.

This post-apocalyptic thriller left me hoping for a lot more. The authors have a knack for detail, but unfortunately, I found it overdone. In combination with a couple world-building and characterization issues, this left me pretty disappointed in this book.

Now, I think there may have been something here, but the two things that really bothered me while reading were over-description and characterization. The over-description slowed the pace of this book quite a bit, and I would argue, not something in you want in a thriller. The dialogue was also stilted in places, and I struggled to differentiate the voices, especially between the girls. With Parker, I wanted to see some growth, but the problem is, he’s not presented as a character who needs growth, except of course, for his convenient drug addiction that he randomly develops at the beginning of the book. To me, Parker is still the same cocky, too perfect alpha male protagonist. Overall, I found him difficult to connect with; he seemed to lack much personality. I thought I would really root for him because he’s aiming to save his daughter, but generally, I was just disinterested in him.

Something else I really struggled with was the world building. It’s nothing remarkable in terms of post-apocalyptic fiction; in fact America has turned into a monolith of men who only want to rape and kill people. Perhaps I’m too much of an optimist, but I would like to believe that the majority of people wouldn’t behave like this in a crisis. Now, I see looting and hoarding, protecting what supplies they have, but I would have liked to see a greater variety in the type of people presented (I had high hopes, given the encounter with the looters early on). Additionally, I just struggled to believe that these three people are going to go up against a lot of armed men (both military and not) and come out alive. Yes, they come out injured, but I'm also questioning their ability to keep going after all their injuries.

Overall, I had to struggle to finish it, even though there was a lot of action. I found myself skimming the vast amounts of detail to figure out what was going on. If a lot of this over-description had been cut down and a little more variation in the encounters had occurred, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more and struggled to put it down.

I would say I don’t really recommend this book. I’m going to put a big content warning here: there is a lot of violence, swearing, and rape in this book, and some readers will most definitely find it upsetting. But:
It would appeal to readers who enjoy a lot of violence and heavy description.

I do not recommend this book. There is plenty of this kind of genre where the profanity is only used to enhance the story instead of how it was used.