Before This Is Over
by Amanda Hickie
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Mar 28 2017 | Archive Date Oct 19 2017
Description
In the midst of a devastating epidemic, how far will a desperate mother go to keep her loved ones safe?
There is a deadly virus spreading around the world. At first it is a distant alarm bell in the background of Hannah's comfortable suburban life. Then suddenly, it has arrived on the doorstep.
The quarantine traps Hannah, her husband, and their young sons in their home and forces them to rely on their own resourcefulness as water and power supplies are cut, food reserves dwindle, and their formerly idyllic backyard and quiet street become battlefields. Hannah is convinced that if she keeps her wits about her, she can protect her family, even as one threat after another looms just on the other side of the door.
Compulsively readable and deeply personal, Before This Is Over forces us to grapple with disaster through the eyes of an ordinary woman. How far will she go to keep her loved ones safe?
Advance Praise
"Before This is Over follows the same suspenseful lines as the post-apocalyptic classic On the Beach, which follows the day-to-day experiences of a group of Australians awaiting the fallout from nuclear war—but Hickie finds more to fear in disasters that have already happened than in any abstract threat....chilling." —Associated Press
"Amanda Hickie's debut novel is a gripping look at the way humanity handles crisis." —Newsweek
“There is no shortage of suspense in Hickie’s novel.... There's an effective sense of claustrophobia" —Kirkus Reviews
“A tense debut…. Hickie realistically depicts how isolation and the threat of disease affect one family, especially when electricity, water, and other services break down.” —Publishers Weekly
“Don’t think you’ll be able to grab a snack once you start Before This Is Over, Amanda Hickie’s shatteringly suspenseful debut, because it’s impossible not to be super-glued to the page. . . . This is a novel that slowly, expertly nudges under your skin, and stays there, even as it raises provocative questions about what price you might pay to keep the ones you love safe. Gorgeously written and so chillingly alive that I was still unnerved hours after finishing the book—and how great is that?” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780316355452 |
| PRICE | $26.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 400 |
Links
Featured Reviews
Librarian 235014
What would you do to keep your loved ones safe?? Hannah is faced with that situation when she hears of a deadly flu outbreak. Although it hasn't reached Australia yet, she has this nagging feeling. Her oldest son is scheduled to go on a school trip, but she has a bad feeling. Call it "mother's intuition" or whatever, but, she reluctantly lets him go on the trip.
While her son is gone the virus hits their town and they are not only cut off from their son but soon the rest of their world. Would you put your family at risk to help neighbors? How would you make the hard decisions that choosing between life and death puts before you?
This book was good. It brings to light the tough decisions we would all be faced with in our everyday lives while dealing with an outbreak. It did focus mainly on the family and not what was happening with the outside world such as looting and other crimes of opportunity. I would put this book more in the family drama category.
I received an eARC from the publisher through NetGalley.
Stephanie C, Reviewer
Excellent book! Great characters and a brilliant storyline. I would highly recommend this book.
Elizabeth T, Reviewer
I could not turn away from this book. Not for a moment, not to deal with the real world, not to eat, and most definitely not to sleep. In fact, I stayed up well into the wee hours of the night, because there could be no sleep until I reached the end, the suspense was that real. The terror was palpable, leaving me wondering if I could be that strong, if I had enough canned goods in the pantry, should I have a rain cistern?
Frightening because it bordered so close to reality. A smidge to the left, and it would no longer be fiction. A little too close for comfort is a light way of putting it. It kept my heart racing and ratcheted up my anxiety, but all in the best ways.
Despite its thrilling nature, there was something equally strong at play, and equally as powerful. The love and devotion to family. That self sacrificing gene that all good mothers possess, that inner strength and will not only to live, but to keep those you love living as well, through force if necessary and damn all those that try to stand in your way.
At the heart a story of courage, of strength through adversity, and what can be accomplished when the world threatens a mother's children. Chilling, heartwarming, and inspiring. What a combination. Absolutely 5 stars. ~ George, 5 stars
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Rebecca E. Hirsch
Children's Nonfiction, Science, Teens & YA
