The story starts as brilliant geologist Ruth Garber and her granddaughter Stella, a geology student, are flying to the Mora oil rig to install a new system. Shortly after they arrive, however, the power goes out to the rig, the generators fail, and the departing helicopter goes down. The crew and Ruth scramble to find out what happened and solve each problem as they pop up, but then people start to disappear. Will any of them survive to be rescued?
This book takes the apocalyptic EMP theme to a whole new unique setting as the crew struggle to survive miles from shore with very limited resources. Add to that the locked room type thriller with characters just disappearing and I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. I'm excited to start the second book in the series now.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

3.75 ⭐

Apocalypse / Stranded / Oil rig
One of us = killer
💖 Grandmother + Granddaughter 💖
A dog 🐶


The Good 😇

Setting ⚫
Loved the oil rig setting. Such a breath of fresh air. So far from the normal torn up city apocalypse.. which I do love as well, but I appreciated the effort taken to make it something different, and it worked!

EMP🪫
There are countless ways preppers have predicted the big doomsday, but I think an EMP attack is one of the lesser talked about ones. Again, appreciate the effort.

Whodunnit 🔪
Easy to guess from the get-go, but most usually are and it's not such a bad thing to me. I just liked that there was a whodunnit element. Stuck on an oil rig with someone taking people out one by one, yes please!

Characters
Overall, the characters were fine. I love the grandmother/granddaughter duo, I liked Kay, she was believable, and I loved the addition of Bestie 🐶


The Bad 🫥

Ruth.

Good lordy, please, I can't.

Honestly, the one reason I can't continue with this series.

She is overbearing. So much so that I started skipping her parts towards the end.

She also seems to have many more talents at her disposal than the average geologist, that's for sure. Bit of a know-it-all and can-do-it-all.

Did she forget her full title? Is she really actually a geologist engineer? Or maybe an E.T. with powers unknown to man?

Nope, no, it's confirmed several times, she's a plain old geologist (absolutely no disrespect to geologists)

Soooo, shouldn't Parker be fixing the lift? Shouldn't Parker be fixing the generator? You know, as he is the maintenance worker, and it is his job to, you know, fix things.

Oh, and she's bossy.. very bossy. Just ask Kay. Big shout out to Kay who couldn't stand a bar of Ruth either *high fives*

Please, I can't take another second.


But other than that, A+ for effort.

I will read anything Grace Hamilton. She's one of my favorite, if predictable, apocalyptic authors. I wish she'd wait and put two or three out together, they're too short for my taste, but as far as story goes? LOVE her!

This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it! I am giving this book three stars, as I don't want to give it a good or bad rating, since I did not get to it and we have to leave a star rating.

Thank you to Relay Publishing and NetGalley for an advance e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth Garber and her granddaughter, Stella, are transported to an oil rig platform where Ruth is to perform some software updates on the rig's computer system. Moments after landing, in the midst of a storm, the power for the platform cuts out and in this exact moment the helicopter that just took off, loses power and crashes into the sea.
The rest of the story follows the crew in their attempt to figure out what happened, restore power and alert authorities to their predicament. When crew members start to disappear and equipment is sabotaged , Ruth and Stella need to figure out who and why, while still trying to repair communications to get help from the mainland to rescue the survivors.

This is the first book in an EMP attack series, as well as being the first book I've read by this author. This wasn't the book for me. Sometimes I'll be intrigued enough by the first to pick up the second, this wasn't the case for this series. It felt like a lot of running around by characters with little actual storyline. I was disappointed with the story as this is usually right up my alley, in this case I just have no desire to continue on to the next book.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
Ruth brings her granddaughter Stella along with her to a job on an offshore oil rig. Shortly after landing the power goes out, on the rig and in the helicopter that is leaving them. Now Ruth, Stella, and the rest of the workers are stranded on the rig without any way off or to find out what is happening. To make things worse, people begin disappearing.
This book is a mix of genres, a terrorist/emp thriller mixed with a murder mystery. The focus of the story is on the investigation, with the emp as the background and a complicating factor. This was an interesting story and a quick read. To top it off the dog is happy and lives.
This is a good read for fans of emp reads, thrillers, and murder mysteries.

This is thriller with a difference.

It gives you the real feeling of being isolated on an oil rig

The characters interact well and the story line certainly keeps you turning the pages.

Another great story by Grace Hamilton and I cannot wait to read the next in the series.

Grace Hamilton is a very prolific writer of "after the collapse" series.....lucky for us, she's a very good one. I've read many of her series and keep coming back for more. Every one of her series are different, no recycling stories. Each has a core group that keeps the story moving and provides the main parts of the back stories. Ms Hamilton is very good at quickly building characters and backgrounds. She keeps the stories moving at a quick pace and always includes details that will shock you when you find out how little you know about surviving a major catastrophe.

This series has at it's core a group of people who survived numerous attacks on an oil rig nut must now get off the rig before the attackers come. They manage to make their way to a small island where a cruise ship has wrecked. A small group of the cruise survivors has claimed dominance and is willing to fight to maintain it.

Another small group of survivalists has become a target of the terrorists that started the events that brought down the infrastructure most of us take for granted. This group has connections to the oil rig survivors and will begin their journey to join them.

This is book 1 in this series. I would read them in order so you know all of the back story, but the story is interesting as it stands, too. Hamilton's series seldom contain more than 4 or 5 books so you are not committing the rest of your life to this one. But again, her series are all unique and all good. Treat yourself.

I’ve read one other book by the author and loved it, so I couldn’t wait to read this. I love how the author has written so many books surrounded EMP, but always seems to come with fresh and unique ideas about the topic.

This was an exciting story full of twists and turns. It was also super fast paced, so I found myself turning the pages to discover what happened next.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book.

I found this book hard to read and easy to predict. I find it hard when each character has two different names and even though it is a grandma or granddaughter that person uses their name instead of "grandma" or other in their thoughts?

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

This was the second book of this author that i have read, and since i did enjoy the first one i thought this would be more of the same but with a different story (both were about an EMP), well it started great I really did like Ruth and Stella and latter the father and son that came aboard… but what let me down was the behind story, the one that was like a crime novel, missing people, murdered people and an inclosed space, few people could be the murder and the mole, I figured who the criminal was, way before Ruth did, and she was like a very smart person…

hmm maybe I didn’t like that much because I don’t really like criminal novels, yes I did enjoy a couple of those, like ”and then there were none”, or some of the earlier Sherlock Holmes story, but in my opinion, it was lacking a bit in the mystery department, it was OK, just not like an Arthur Conan Doyle.

Thank you NetGalley and Relay Publishing for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this gripping novel

a different sort of book for me to read and i have to admit to really liking it

its set offshore on a drilling rig which always fascinates me about life on board one of those...but the story starts when a helicopter lands on the rig with ruth and stella who are there to oversee some work but not long after they land all the power goes, nothing is working and then people start to go missing....

we also meet a couple of fishermen who are also stranded at sea with no power and as their boat makes its way further out to sea they manage to crash into the drilling rig

as more disasters occur on the rig could there really be someone among them doing it....

interesting read and i cant wait for the next book in the series

I enjoy Dystopian novels and like that this was a different setup being that it all occurs in the water. It was a good survival story, and then you throw in a mystery involving a saboteur. I like all the little prepper tips that are usually included in these stories, but this one lacks that component - likely because you wouldn't be a prepper in a location such as this. The only characters fully developed were those integral to the story, so the mystery was not difficult to solve quickly. Even so, I empathized with the characters, and the book was a good read.

The cover would certainly grab by attention on a book shelf so it does its job well! It fits the book well and the cover could really be a “scene” from within the book.
The book begins with Ruth a highly qualified and much respected geologist and her granddaughter Stella having a rather rough helicopter flight out to the offshore drilling rig. Ruth is there to consult and help out with a new software upgrade. Stella is there to watch and learn basically as she is still a geology student. Stella is struggling to read the latest news about a terrorist group on her phone with an increasingly poor phone signal. Stella is being teased about the lack of “phone time” perhaps being a good thing and then the flight gets rather bumpy so much so it has one of the returning rig workers going pale! Things go from bad to worse when once dropped off the helicopter actually seems to lose power and crash! It is soon discovered that no one has any phone service and all the rig electronics seem to have stopped too. Now Ruth and Stella are stuck in the middle of the sea with no immediate prospect of rescue. Some of the staff on the rig are sent to shore using one of the lifeboats but Stella sneakily gets in and then gets back out of the lifeboat she wants to stay with her grandmother.
Whilst this is happening on the rig, John and his son Curtis are out fishing on their boat at sea when suddenly their machinery starts to go awry. They have to let a net full of fish go free in an attempt to save themselves and their boat and end up crashing into the rig then being “rescued” by those on the rig.
John & Curtis both have useful skills and Ruth soon sets them to work helping her attempt to get an old generator working. However, things are far from straight forward with staff members going missing, then one is found dead, it is becoming apparent that there is not just a saboteur on board, but a saboteur who isn’t afraid to kill to protect their identity and forward their cause. When it is revealed that the very terrorists that Stella was reading about on the helicopter are responsible for what is going on both on the rig and for the raging fires that those on the rig can see along the shoreline, it seems like all is lost.
I love the set of determined characters within this book. The way Ruth especially refuses to give up or give in. Ruth has Stella to assist her and the with the arrival of John and Curtis who immediately offer to help in any way they can, it makes you get behind Ruth and believe she can fix anything.
I did kind of guess the identity of the saboteur before it was revealed in the book but the whole process Ruth, Stella, John & Curtis go through of who they think it could be and why makes for really interesting reading too. The book ends on a cliff hanger, and has made me really eager to read more as soon as possible!
My immediate thoughts upon finishing reading the book were, Oooo, strangely I had my suspicions about who the actual 'bad guy' was all along! Then I started thinking about what could/would happen next, can the survivors guard the station and prevent terrorists from getting on it and using it? How will they survive with dwindling supplies? So many questions!
Summing up, really enjoyed it and looking forward to reading more!

No Rescue by Grace Hamilton.
Book 1 of EMP Sabotage.
A storm looms on the horizon as  Ruth Garber and her granddaughter Stella travel by helicopter to an offshore drilling rig. Ruth, a world-class geologist, is there to consult on a software upgrade. Stella, a geology student, just wants to prove herself to her legendary grandmother. They don’t know their trip will become a grim struggle to survive…
Really good read. Love this author. 5*.