The End of Everything Series by Nate Johnson

The End of Everything series by Nate Johnson was published in 2022 and 2023.

1.  The End of Everything, 2022
2.  The End of the Beginning, 2022
3.  The End of an Era, 2023
4.  The End of Hope, 2023
5.  The End of the Road, 2023
6.  The End of the Line, 2023
7.  The End of the Chaos, 2023

Book 1 summary:

At the end of the world, Nick Peterson never expected to be stuck with a bunch of kids.  A seventeen-year-old boy shouldn't be responsible for keeping other people alive.  But he didn't have much choice in the matter.  That's what happens when everyone else dies.

A CIT (counselor in training) at a summer camp high in the Poconos, Nick is left in charge of nine kids and fellow CIT Jenny O'Brien.  No big deal.  But when the people in charge don't return, Nick and the others slowly learn the truth.  No one will ever be returning.

A deadly virus has broken out across the world at the same time.  A virus with a 100% fatality rate.  Only those who are lucky enough to be on their own will survive.  In fact, the last thing you want to come across is someone you don't know.

Blessed with enough food to last them months, Nick and the others hunker down and try to figure out how to survive in this strange new world.  Devising solutions and new ways of doing things to stay alive.  But after a winter of starvation, Nick has no choice but to brave former civilization and pray the virus has died away.  It is either risk death to get food or die of starvation.

The discovery of a sanctuary on the other side of the country becomes their goal.  Loading everyone into a bus, they start their way there.  Fighting both the few remaining people and the elements to reach safety, only to discover it isn't as safe as they hoped.

Each book in this series features different characters caught in the aftermath of the virus.  Through happenstance, they end up in the Pacific Northwest in the same vicinity as the characters from Book 1.  Plot summaries of subsequent books do not spoil the rest of the series.

Book 2 summary:

Luke Sinclair is left alone in an empty world where almost everyone has died.  After spending two years searching out the few remaining people, he discovers Brie Osborn and her fellow survivors.  But at eighteen, he isn't ready to settle down no matter how pretty the girl is.  However, after discovering three children trapped in an evil situation, he reluctantly accepts the responsibility of saving them. Unfortunately, Brie would be vital to his success.

Two teenagers and three children being chased by evil men in a world gone mad.  A world without anything that they had come to depend upon.  Nothing works as it should. There is no authority to turn to.  Only two people doing the right thing.

Book 3 summary:

Five young people trapped in a skyscraper at the end of the world must learn to survive in a new era.  An era where all the old rules no longer apply.

Evan Carlson finds himself responsible for four other teenagers at the top of the Palmer tower in New York City.  Unable to descend into the chaos beneath them, they must scavenge from their new home.  But, even isolated, the evil from below still rises and must be dealt with.

Finally, when they are forced to break free, they discover everything is worse than they could ever imagine.

Sydney Parker had her entire life mapped out.  Harvard next year.  Yale law school four years later.  A girl's dream husband along the way.  But now, her world is ruined.  Everything she had hoped to find had been taken, and she must learn to live in this new world with death and devastation around every corner.  And a young man in Evan Carlson that would try any woman's patience.

Book 4 summary:

The small town of Hope, Montana cuts itself off as the world ends around it.  Little more than a village all alone in the mountains struggling to survive the worst of dystopian disasters.

Jake Roberts is an outsider.  A young man fighting to belong while the world crumbles.  Torn between helping others and trying to remain detached.  As the town and its people fight to survive both the plague and each other, Jake is caught in the middle of it all.  How do people live when they lose contact with civilization?  What happens when people lose what they have taken for granted?  Food, electricity, and security.  All of it gone, and worse, never coming back.

Mia Burk is left caring for her foster brother and sister as the world ends.  A situation no seventeen-year-old girl should be put through.  This new heavy burden of responsibility forces her to do things she would never consider if life was normal.  But this new world means she and her family must do whatever is necessary to live.

Book 5 summary:

Alone, isolated in the wilds of Alaska, Rachel Jordan's only goal was to keep her two little sisters alive as the world they knew disappeared.  Abandoned at her uncle’s lodge, Rachel struggles to come to grips with the new reality.  Everyone she ever knew is dead or dying.  Civilization has disappeared and there will be no rescue.  She and her sisters must face this new world all alone.

Of course, when a boy is washed up on the beach, her problems only go from bad to worse.

Half drowned, Noah McCain is forced to accept a new responsibility.  Keeping three girls alive, and finding a way to get them back to what used to be civilization.  He must use every bit of woodcraft and repeatedly risk his life just so they might survive.

Only after living through a harsh Alaska winter can he focus on escape.  He knows that long term, their only chance is to find other survivors.  Even if that means they have to walk all the way.  

Book 6 and Book 7 are set 19 and 38 years later, respectively.  The summaries are just mildly spoilerish, but since they do mention some names, I won't include them in this post.  I had really enjoyed the first five books, and I felt some discomfort when I reached Book 6.  I knew the situation would a little different, since it is set 19 years after the other books.  

It turns out that Book 6 and Book 7 are just as good as the rest of the books in the set.  What's great about the ending of Book 7 is that readers know that the survivors will be okay.  They do have printed books from the before times, and as more people gather in Oregon, they will continue to rebuild civilization.

This series is just as good at Nate Johnson's other series that I recently reviewed.  Like with the other series, these books have many punctuation and homonym errors.  Randomly capitalized words sometimes appear in the middle of sentences.  Like with the other books, the story is so good that I didn't care.  I just ignored most all of the errors, except in the rare instances where an error temporarily confused me.

If you like young adult apocalyptic teen fiction with some romance and danger without gore, then you will like these books.

The End of Times Series by Nate Johnson

The End of Times Series is by independent author, Nate Johnson.  The series was published beginning in 2023.

1.  Impact, 2023
2.  Escape, 2024
3.  Endure, 2024
4.  Quest, 2024
5.  Justice, to be published in 2025

Book 1 summary:

It really is the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Death, Famine, War, and Conquest.  Things a seventeen-year-old boy shouldn't have to deal with.

In those most infamous words, mistakes were made.  It wasn't supposed to happen. The asteroid was supposed to miss.  Running for their lives, Ryan Conrad and Kelsey Morgan race to escape the impact of a super asteroid and the apocalyptic world it left behind.  Fighting to survive the aftershocks.  The earthquake to end all earthquakes, the largest tsunami in human history, and worst of all, the EMP and loss of civilization.

Ryan must lead a ragtag group of people from Seattle to the safety of his grandfather's farm in northern Idaho.  Unfortunately, it seems as if fate is aligned against them.  Constantly putting every obstacle in their path.  Laying every trap, as if this new dystopian world was designed to kill them.

To top it off, he’s stuck with young kids depending upon him, a girl out of his league, and knowledge that one mistake and they all die.

Each subsequent book in this series features another member of Ryan's family heading for his grandfather's farm, each of them with a new acquaintance from the opposite sex.  The summaries of the subsequent books do not spoil the first book or any of the other books. 

Book 2 summary: 

It is a known fact.  Being in New York City at the end of the world is not the best.  There is only one solution.  ESCAPE.

When Haley Conrad was informed an asteroid is going to impact the earth, leading to the world's end, she knew her only chance of surviving was to escape New York before it became hell on earth.  But making it all the way across the country wasn't going to be easy.

Thankfully, Tanner Parks might be the perfect solution, part bodyguard and all monster.  He was just the type of boy that could keep a girl alive long enough to make it to the safety of the Idaho mountains.

Two young people following the ancient migrants trail.  Two people fighting to survive in this new world with new rules and more monsters than anyone could ever know.

Book 3 summary:

Chase Conrad didn't get along with people.  But that didn't mean he wanted the world to end.  Not like this.

High in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he receives a call that an asteroid is going to wipe out civilization.  Not something you hear every day.  Torn between hiding out in the mountains and returning to the family farm in Northern Idaho, Chase choses home.  His sister and cousins will need him.  Unfortunately, three young people and a trial of endurance interfere with his plans.

Meagan Foster never expected the world to end.  Earthquakes, Volcanoes, EMPs.  Oh yeah, starvation.  None of it was expected.

Forced to make a choice, stay and fight the mobs tearing the city apart or the long desert road, one thing was obvious: the only chance she and her two younger brothers had was this strange boy walking out of the mountains.  Four young people must fight the desert, natural disasters, and what used to be left of civilization to reach safety.

Book 4 summary:

Cassie Conrad knew life was unfair, but she never thought the universe could be this cruel.  Informed by her father that the world is going to end, she is torn between staying with her friend Sara or trekking across the country to the family’s farm in Idaho.

Everything she thought she knew is put to the test.  Everything she valued has been taken from her.

Jake Thompson never anticipated an asteroid ushering in a post-apocalyptic world.  Left in charge of his sister Sara, and her friend Cassie, he must keep them alive as the world turns to hell in a handbasket around them.  Unfortunately, he is not surprised to discover just how fast the law of the jungle has returned full force.  Kill or be killed.

There is no one to go to for help.  No authority worth trusting.  Alone, these three young people face a new dystopian world filled with starving people desperate to take what they need.

I will get the only negative out of the way first.  These books have quite a few homonym and punctuation errors as well as randomly capitalized words.  At times, this is distracting.  However, these books are so compelling and so very good that I didn't care.

Nate Johnson tells really great stories.  The books are effortless to read.  He is low on description and includes no unnecessary information—no sidetracking into pointless, boring stuff.  Each story sprints forward from the very first page.  He is very high on characterization and effortlessly manages to gain the reader's interest.  I immediately cared about the characters and found every book to be compelling.

The stories are repetitive, but I like that.  I'm a series fan, and it's great fun reading through a set where every installment gives me a variation of what I read in the previous book.  This series does exactly that.  If you like the first book, then you'll like all of them.

Each book features a character from the Conrad family who receives a call from their father/uncle telling them that an asteroid will hit in minutes.  Each person grabs their things and takes off for the family farm in Idaho.  As each character heads on their journey, they acquire a traveling companion from the opposite sex.  The two characters inevitably begin to have feelings for each other, while hiding their feelings from each other and thinking that the other doesn't care.  

The books are unrealistic in some ways, but these kinds of books always are.  I didn't mind that, since I thoroughly enjoyed reading the books.

I love these books.  They are great reading.  If you love apocalyptic teen fiction with a hint of romance and a good dose of danger without any gore, then you'll love these books.

The Rule of Three Trilogy by Eric Walters

The Rule of Three Trilogy was written by Eric Walters and published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

1.  The Rule of Three, 2014
2.  The Rule of Three: Fight for Power, 2015
3.  The Rule of Three: Will to Survive, 2016

Publishers summary:

One shocking afternoon, computers around the globe shut down in a viral catastrophe.  At sixteen-year-old Adam Daley's high school, the problem first seems to be a typical electrical outage, until students discover that cell phones are down, municipal utilities are failing, and a few computer-free cars like Adam's are the only vehicles that function. 

Driving home, Adam encounters a storm tide of anger and fear as the region becomes paralyzed.  Soon—as resources dwindle, crises mount, and chaos descends—he will see his suburban neighborhood band together for protection.  And Adam will understand that having a police captain for a mother and a retired government spy living next door are not just the facts of his life but the keys to his survival, in The Rule of Three by Eric Walters.

This is an interesting take on the apocalypse plot.  Typically, post-apocalyptic stories begin with total mayhem and immediate killing sprees within the early pages of the story.  The characters end up on the run, eventually finding an oasis in some distant part of the country, where they can finally regain a sense of normalcy.  Sometimes the oasis falls, and the characters must try to find somewhere else that is safe.

In these books, Adam's neighborhood is the oasis.  We follow their story as they build a safe haven and defend it against the outsiders who try to steal what they have.  Since Adam and his acquaintances are never on the run, the plot is rather slow for much of the first book.  It gradually becomes more interesting as complications and threats develop.

Since the book doesn't open with instant mayhem, it is more realistic than many of these types of stories.

Overall, this is a very good trilogy.  It does drag at times.

The Wilders Duology by Cass Kim

The Wilders duology was written and published by independent author Cass Kim.

1.  Wilders: A Dystopian Half-Pocalypse Series, 2019
2.  Consequences: A Wilders Finale, 2020

The set can also be purchased in digital format as a trilogy with a prequel, The Change, included.  I read The Change between volumes 1 and 2, and that is probably when the prequel should be read.  The reader can only appreciate certain aspects of The Change with knowledge gleaned from having read the first Wilders book.

Publisher's summary:

The forest behind Renna’s home is dark and dense. It holds more secrets than she knows. Having grown up in the half-pocalypse, a world balancing against the tide of a blood-borne virus, Renna knows the rules by heart:

1) Stay inside between dusk and dawn.
2) Close and lock the copper and silver screens.
3) Report anyone suspected of infection immediately.

Now, at seventeen, Renna will have to survive against the rules.

- An unprecedented attack.
- A strange boy with copper eyes.

Can Renna survive the darkness to save the people she loves?

The first book captured my attention pretty quickly.  I was worried about Renna's cat, however.  Timmy Tammy, also known as Tim Tam, is a large cat who is Renna's beloved companion.  It's clear from the beginning of the first book that Renna's home will soon be the site of an attack.  I feared for Tim Tam, since it would have been too sad for him to have been killed.  I mention this to reassure anyone who decides to read these books that Tim Tam will be fine.  He doesn't die.

I enjoyed reading these books.

All That's Left in the World by Erik J. Brown

All That's Left in the World by Erik J. Brown was published by Balzer + Bray on March 8, 2022.

Publisher's summary:

When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie's house, he's injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose.  A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world’s population, including everyone both boys have ever loved.  And if this new world has taught them anything, it's to be scared of what other desperate people will do... so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other?

After danger breaches their shelter, they flee south in search of civilization.  But something isn't adding up about Andrew's story, and it could cost them everything.  And Jamie has a secret, too.  He's starting to feel something more than friendship for Andrew, adding another layer of fear and confusion to an already tumultuous journey.

The road ahead of them is long, and to survive, they'll have to shed their secrets, face the consequences of their actions, and find the courage to fight for the future they desire, together.  Only one thing feels certain: all that's left in their world is the undeniable pull they have toward each other.

Andrew and Jamie are very likeable characters.  The reader can't help but like both of them immediately.  Andrew is gay, and he knows it.  Andrew is drawn to Jamie instantly, and he's not surprised by his feelings since he's been aware for some time that he's gay.  

Jamie has only ever had girlfriends.  The feelings that he begins to have for Andrew take him by surprise.

Each boy thinks that he alone feels the way he does, so this conflict is the main focus of the story.  The two boys face the usual struggles that characters face in post-apocalyptic stories.  They struggle to find food and water while they try to avoid people who would take everything from them.  While the boys face these problems, their feelings for each other are always in the forefront of their thoughts.

This book is apocalypse light served up with fluffy romance.  I greatly enjoyed reading this book and consider it to be overall excellent.

The ending is set up for a sequel, and I was pleased to see that the sequel is close to publication.  The second book is The Only Light Left Burning, and it will be released on May 28, 2024.  I don't have long to wait before I can read more about Andrew and Jamie.

Swarm by Jennifer D. Lyle

Swarm by Jennifer D. Lyle was published on November 7, 2023, by Sourcebooks Fire.

Publisher's summary:

On a sunny September morning, the creatures first appear.  Shur sees one of them hovering outside the window in history class: it looks like a giant butterfly, at first too beautiful and strange to seem like a threat.  But when emergency alerts light up everyone's phones around her, she realizes something very, very wrong is happening outside.  These… things are everywhere.

By the time Shur makes it back to her house with her brother, Keene, and their two best friends, it's clear they must face whatever comes next on their own.  A terrifying species the world's never seen before has suddenly emerged, and few living things are safe.  As the creatures swarm and attack outside, life for Shur and her friends becomes a survival game.  They board the windows, stockpile supplies, and try to make sense of the news reports for as long as the power stays on.

Yet nothing can prepare them for what follows.  The butterflies are only the beginning.  The next onslaught will be deadlier, and even closer to home.

This story is quite reminiscent of the Covid-19 pandemic.  After the huge butterflies appear and begin attacking, Shur and Keene pick up their brother, Little, from daycare.  Their friends Nathan and Jenny are also with them.  The group of four teenagers and four-year-old Little escape to Shur, Keene, and Little's home.  They end up trapped in their home for the entire story.  The story clearly mimics the lockdown phase of the pandemic.

There are also some references to how people react to the swarm, and the reactions also mimic how people reacted to the pandemic.  

This is an excellent story, and I highly recommend it.

Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit, Northern Exposure, and Western Strength by Harley Tate

Harley Tate's Nuclear Survival series consists of nine books.  It is best to read the Southern Grit trilogy first, followed by the Northern Exposure trilogy, and ending with the Western Strength trilogy.  Grant is the protagonist of the first trilogy, and he briefly encounters Midge at the beginning of the first book.  Midge is the protagonist of the second trilogy, and Midge's sister, Lainey, is the protagonist of the final trilogy in the set.  So we get to see what happens in three separate parts of the country as the disaster unfolds.

Since each set of books opens on the day that the disaster begins, none of the summaries spoil events for any of the books.  The summaries were taken from Amazon's product pages.

Southern Grit:

What if an EMP is only the first strike?

With a credible threat to the United States and a plane stuck on the tarmac, Grant Walton is thirty seconds from full-blown panic mode.  He’s the only one in the airport who knows the truth.  When the power goes out, he can’t waste another second.  It’s the beginning of the end and every man for himself.

A nuclear attack will rip the country apart.

Leah Walton is wrapping up a twelve-hour shift as a nurse in the heart of the city.  When the power goes out, the hospital operates on crisis mode.  She can’t stop to breathe, let alone check her messages.  When she finally listens to her husband’s frantic calls, she’s faced with an impossible choice:  leave or die trying.

Could you drop everything to save yourself?

Grant and Leah race the clock to find each other before the United States is plunged into chaos.  When the bombs fall, their worst fears come true.  Can Grant make it home in time to find his wife?  Will Leah escape the brunt of the blast?

Northern Exposure:

An imminent threat.  A city in the dark.

When a fellow hacker clues Midge Sinclair into an impending terror attack, every second matters.  She must alert her sister, find her mother, and make it out of Chicago before a nuclear bomb tears the city apart.  The only problem?  She’s 30,000 feet in the air careening toward O’Hare in a powerless plane.

Could you drop everything to save yourself?

Danny Olsen spends his days learning to be a doctor and ignoring his father’s disapproval.  When he flies back to college via a layover in Chicago, he never expects to meet a girl like Midge.  She’s smart, quick on her feet, and the only person who can get him out of the airport alive.

Strangers on the run against impossible odds.

With an EMP destroying the grid in Chicago, Midge and Danny race the clock to escape the city before a nuclear bomb turns downtown to ash.  They’ll have to learn to trust each other if they want to make it out alive.

Western Strength:

A looming threat.  A reporter on the edge.

Lainey starts her day like any other, preparing to host the midday news on a local TV station.  When her younger sister calls, spouting off about an imminent terror attack, she’s skeptical.  Midge might be a top-notch computer hacker, but that doesn’t mean she’s a reliable source.

An entire country thrown into chaos.

Keith takes his dog for a run and heads into work, expecting an uneventful eight-hour shift behind a video camera.  When his ex-girlfriend busts into the boss’s office with news of not only a massive blackout, but potential nuclear bombs, he doesn’t believe it.  A glimpse at her sister’s information changes everything.

Could you chase the story despite the risks?

Lainey and Keith are thrown together in a race-against-time to uncover the truth and broadcast the facts to the American people.  They’ll have to trust each other, their instincts, and their wits to survive.

I enjoyed all three sets of books, but the trilogy I enjoyed the most is Western Strength.  I like Lainey the best of the protagonists, and also, I felt deep suspense since I knew what was going to happen after having read the previous trilogies.

After the EMP Series by Harley Tate

The After the EMP series by Harley Tate is divided into three trilogies.  The first trilogy features Madison and her parents, who are all three in different locations when the EMP strikes. 

The summaries included in this post were taken from Amazon's product pages.

If the power grid fails, how far will you go to survive?

Madison spends her days tending plants as an agriculture student at the University of California, Davis.  She plans to graduate and put those skills to work only a few hours from home in the Central Valley.  The sun has always been her friend, until now.

When catastrophe strikes, how prepared will you be?

Tracy starts her morning like any other, kissing her husband, Walter, goodbye before heading off to work at the local public library.  She never expects it to end fleeing for her life in a Suburban full of food and water.  Tackling life’s daily struggles is one thing, preparing to survive when it all crashes down is another.

The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.

With no communication and no word from the government, the Sloanes find themselves grappling with the end of the modern world all on their own.  Will Madison and her friends have what it takes to make it back to Sacramento and her family?  Can Tracy fend off looters and thieves and help her friends and neighbors survive?

This trilogy has a slow start with a lengthy description of the types of EMPs and how each type affects the world.  While I understand the reason that the description was included, most people reading the book probably have already read many others and know the premise quite well.  A shorter explanation would have sufficed. 

The first two books in this trilogy are very good.  The third book gets bogged down with Walter worrying about his daughter Madison a bit too much, which I found boring.  Walter's concern is certainly realistic, but in a book, it is just too much.

The second trilogy switches to a second group of characters.  

Two weeks into the apocalypse, would your switch be flipped?

Colt Potter's a no-nonsense air marshal who doesn't hesitate to use his skills.  When he sets off on his own, leaving the comfort of a warm bed, a good looking woman, and the University of Oregon behind, he's ready to be a solitary man.  Rescuing a fifteen-year-old girl is the last thing he needs.

When you have nothing left, can you find the will to survive?

Dani may be young, but she's no stranger to hardship.  When the pangs of hunger drive her to the brink, Dani makes the difficult choice to steal.  She knows she might get caught. She never expects a stranger to save her.

The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.

Joining forces isn't part of the plan, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  With danger around every corner, will Colt and Dani find the strength to trust each other?  Or will the past ruin any chance of seeing the future?

I really like Colt and Dani and the gradual father-daughter relationship that develops between them.  The second trilogy is my favorite part of the set.

In the third trilogy, the Sloane family's group and the group containing Colt and Dani join together.  I will not include the summary of this trilogy, since it is the final part of the set and has some spoilers in it.  The final trilogy is a bit weak.  Some parts are hard to believe and are just very uninteresting.  

Even though I didn't enjoy the final trilogy nearly as much as the first two, I overall greatly enjoyed the set of nine books.

The Harvesting Series by Melanie Karsak

I read a few dystopian series in September and October.  I was uninterested in writing any kind of proper review, but I do want to give some information about the three sets of books that I read.  If you happen to like the same kind of dystopian novel that I do, then I want you to know that these also fit what I like.  I find it very hard to locate the exact kind of dystopian novel that I enjoy.  

This post covers the first set that I read, which is the Harvesting Series by Melanie Karsak.  The set contains five books.  They are pretty short, so far as this kind of book goes.  As I recall, the books feature three different sets of characters.  These characters are introduced in separate volumes.  This concerned me when I finished the first book and began the second book to find that it contained different characters.  Sometimes authors do a poor job when switching between different sets of characters in their parallel adventures.  In this case, it is just fine.  I feel that it works better for the different sets of characters to be introduced in different volumes from each other.  The reader does not have to switch back and forth between sets of a characters within a single volume.  

These books border on fantasy, but they are set firmly in our world.  For that reason, I don't mind the fantasy aspect.  For the most part, I am not a fan of fantasy, so it's important to me that any book similar to that type is set in our world.  I have no patience for detailed descriptions of worlds dramatically different from ours.  I don't have time for that.

I copied the summaries of three of the books from Amazon's product pages.  It is okay to read these three summaries.  They will not spoil the series, since each summary is from a book that introduces one of the sets of characters.  I'm always afraid to read any summary past the first book in a set since they tend to contain major spoilers for continuing story arcs.  These summaries are fine.

#1 The Harvesting

Layla spent her whole life running away from her hometown.  Raised by the town’s medium, and called the "weird" girl, the last thing she wants is to go home.  But when Layla gets a desperate call to return just as an outbreak sweeps the globe, her instincts urge her to go.  Good thing, because the dead are rising.  The town’s residents, including the ex who jilted her, will need Layla’s help if they hope to survive the end of the world.

#2 Midway

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, for the beginning of the end.

Carnie.  Ride jockey.  Roustabout.  White trash.  Tilt girl.  Gypsy.  Cricket has been called a lot of things, but she never thought survivor of the zombie apocalypse would be one of them.  One day she’s barking on the midway, and the next day, the world is eating itself alive.

Cricket, along with Vella, a tarot reader, and Puck, Cricket’s mangy mutt, find themselves running for their lives, but where can you hide when mankind has fallen? Cricket will need help if she hopes to survive.

#4 Witch Wood

Harm none, and be ready for zombies.

In the little town of Brighton, Amelia’s practice of Wicca marks her as a curiosity both at home and at school.  But Amelia can’t change what she is.  Knowing how to see auras, heal, and cast spells comes naturally to her.  Only Madame Knightly, the ancient matriarch and owner of Witch Wood Estate, to whom Amelia plays caretaker, doesn’t seem to mind.  In fact, the crumbling old mansion is full of oddities.

However, when modern treatments fail to make a dent in the flu outbreak sweeping the globe, those who once ridiculed her white witchcraft turn to Amelia for help.  While her eucalyptus tinctures prove no more effective than western medicine, her spell-casting is another matter.  The residents of Brighton soon depend on the very magic they once ridiculed to save their lives.

I have not included the summaries for #3 and #5.  In #3 The Shadow Aspect, the characters from the first two books meet each together.  In #5 The Torn World, all three sets of characters come together.  

I must mention one quote from page 203 of the fifth book.  "The idea of a vampire, and not the sorry-assed sparkly kind, terrifies me."  Ooh, insulting Edward Cullen.  Nice.

I really enjoy reading this type of book when the text flows well and is interesting from start to finish.  This set is exactly like that.  The main weakness that I recall is that there are way too many characters in the first book.  As the extra characters begin to be killed off, it becomes much easier to keep everyone straight.  

I enjoyed this series.

Snow & Ash Endless Winter

The Endless Winter series by Theresa Shaver consists of the following books.

1.  Snow & Ash, 2015
2.  Rain & Ruin, 2015
3.  Sun & Smoke, 2018
4.  Fire & Fury, 2018

These books follow the stories of two teenagers in Canada after a nuclear war and during the resulting nuclear winter.

The books were written by an independent author, so the books have quite a few grammatical errors.  The tense also shifts improperly between past and present tense.

The first book is extremely suspenseful and compelling.  The second book is also very good.  The third book lags some, and the fourth book is pretty much filler to extend the series.  I did not find the fourth book to be that great.

The author's characterization is excellent.  The weakness is the lack of description about what is happening outside.  The reader is told that the the temperature is cold and that the world is in nuclear winter.  Other than that, I had no concept of what was happening.  Snow is almost never mentioned, so I pictured a gray sky (the clouds were mentioned often) and no snow at all.  During the times that the characters venture outside, there is no mention of anything like snow.

The second book features acid rain that is so toxic that the skin is burned and sores develop.  Later in the story, characters go outside to get their belongings that were left outside for weeks when the rain began.  If the rain was able to eat through clothing and leave sores on the skin, then I don't understand how the characters' possessions would be just fine out in the rain.

I could also mention many other aspects of these stories that make little sense. 

I really enjoyed the first story, but the quality of the stories deteriorates enough through the set that my opinion of the set is overall negative.

The Rayn Mirago Series by B. D. Messick

The Rayn Mirago series consists of four books written by B. D. Messick.

1.  Sojourn: The Wildlands, 2015
2.  Sojourn: The Deadlands, 2016
3.  Sojourn: The Beastlands, 2016
4.  Sojourn: Enclave, 2017

In Sojourn: The Wildlands, the oceans have risen, and the world's climate has been destroyed.  The United States has fallen, and five cities remain as enclaves:  Las Vegas, Spokane, Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta.  The rest of the former nation is in ruin.  Rayn Mirago lives in the Las Vegas enclave and is about to turn 17.  Teens are forced to leave their enclave at 17 and must sojourn to another enclave, which is chosen by lottery.  Only the strong will survive the sojourn, so this practice keeps the remaining population strong.  Teens are forced to go to another enclave so that the population will remain diverse.

In the lottery, Rayn ends up with the Atlanta token in her lottery.  As she leaves Las Vegas, she says goodbye to her parents, knowing that she will never see them again.  A couple of days into Rayn's journey, she is joined by Luk, who left before his birthday so that he could join her.

In Sojourn: The Deadlands, Rayn and Luk continue their journey through what was once Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri.  This part of the country is desert with dangerous hybrid creatures and vicious wind storms.  The teens are captured by members of a dangerous cult run by an insane man named Jacob.  An important character dies, and Rayn is consumed by hatred.  Rayn and Luk reach Graceland, where they stay with a group of people who are fugitives from Jacob.

In Sojourn: The Beastlands, Rayn and Luk depart from Graceland for Atlanta.  The rumors are that Atlanta has fallen, but Rayn wants to find out the truth.  She also wants to seek revenge against Jacob.  Alee sneaks away from Graceland to join Rayn and Luk.  The group soon consists of four after the teens encounter Trace during their journey.  The teens fight through the jungles of Mississippi and Alabama as they slowly get closer to Atlanta.

In Sojourn: Enclave, Rayn, Luk, Alee, and Trace reach the final stages of their journey into Atlanta.  Once the teens reach Atlanta, they face their final showdown with Jacob.

The romance is excessively overdone in this series and is not believable most of the time.  Rayn and Luk are constantly kissing, touching, giving each other seductive looks, and admiring each other's bodies.  They even stop to do this in the middle of dangerous scenes or right after nearly getting killed.  The kissing and ogling of each other is extreme and obnoxious.

I enjoy romance when done properly, but the romance is not developed right in these books.  It's nauseating.  Each time Rayn and Luk began their antics, I coped by quickly skimming over as many paragraphs as needed to get past the smooching.  Yuck.

The romance is somewhat less obnoxious by the third and fourth books, but it is still excessive and annoying in those books.

I was really bothered about Luk's token in the first book.  I knew instinctively that he probably did not get Atlanta as his destination, but Rayn accepts that he did without even asking.  How stupid.  The topic was ignored for the entire first book, and I considered it rather important.  I was bothered about the token the entire time, and I would have been less bothered if Rayn had even considered the possibility of Luk not having the same token.  Instead, Rayn smooches with Luk constantly instead of thinking about this rather important detail. 

It was not until page 69 of the second book that Rayn finally asks about Luk's token.  Oddly, she accepts his lame answer and doesn't begin questioning his story until later.

Aside from the annoying romance, this is a rather good dystopian series.

The Ashfall Trilogy by Mike Mullin

The Ashfall Trilogy by Mike Mullin consists of three books.

1.  Ashfall, 2011
2.  Ashen Winter, 2012
3.  Sunrise, 2014

In Ashfall, the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park explodes.  This releases such a huge quantity of ash that the world is immediately thrust into a volcanic winter.  Alex is alone at home during the eruption, and he sets off through the ash in hopes of finding his parents and sister, who are visiting relatives.

The book is slow to get started, and Alex is alone for the longest time.  The story is actually quite realistic for that reason, but the realism makes it boring.

On the other hand, the fight scenes are extremely short and not realistic.  Alex, who has never had to kill before, is able to almost instantly kill every opponent with only one or two hits.  Wow.  I am not one for fight scenes that last for pages and pages, but it's a bit concerning for fight scenes to last only one short paragraph with almost no effort.

The book has more graphic violence than I can stomach.  I read young adult novels to avoid the more graphic violence in adult novels, but the violence in this book is on an adult level.  Nearly four pages deal with an extremely detailed description of a rabbit getting killed, skinned, and prepared for consumption.  I didn't read more than a few words and skipped the text until the description was over.  A few other times I had to skip over lengthy excessively graphic descriptions of death.

The book gets much better after Alex begins traveling with Darla, although I still had to skim horrific gore.

Darla is quite likable.  She's better than Alex.  I kind of wish the book had been narrated from her point of view.  The story could have begun as Alex arrives at Darla's farm and been narrated by her.  If that had been done and if the gore had been left out, then the story might have been outstanding.

One thing that is off is that nobody coughs or has trouble breathing.  The ash would have caused people with even minor asthma to have major problems.  In fact, even people with no prior history of asthma would have developed asthma.

I wasn't sure at all whether I would be interested in reading more than just the first book.  I found I cared greatly about the characters by the end of the book, so I decided to purchase the second book.

In Ashen Winter, Alex makes extremely stupid impulsive decisions that cost him and Darla dearly.  Each time Darla tells Alex emphatically that something is a really bad idea, he does it anyway, causing disastrous events like the total loss of their supplies or the abduction of Darla.  I quickly became quite annoyed.

I skipped around 20 to 30 pages in the middle of the book.  I got so disgusted about Alex's stupidity that I couldn't read it.  After that point, I read through to the end.

This book doesn't have the problems of the first book, but those problems were traded for others.  Darla and Alex are apart for most all of the book.  This was a big mistake, since Darla is the best part of the first book.  Alex's extreme stupidity is the other huge flaw in this book.  The entire plot is driven by Alex's stupidity.  Other ways could have been found for the same sequence of events to occur.  It's laziness to rely on one character being so incredibly stupid.

Still, I enjoyed most of the book and wanted to know how the story would end, so I proceeded to the third book.

In Sunrise, Alex and Darla continue their struggle for survival.  Interestingly, Alex is cured of his stupidity in this story and assumes a leadership role.  He leads hundreds of people as they build a new settlement in order to survive the volcanic winter.

During the volcanic winter, some people have become cannibals as a means to survive. Page 523 has an insightful comment about cannibalism.  "Cannibalism is simply not a viable long-term survival strategy.  The problem solves itself."  Indeed it does.

I love reading the reviews on Amazon after I finish these novels.  I particularly like the more critical reviews since they bring up good points. One reviewer wrote, "[Darla] was able to get their new community set up using wind turbines to heat their greenhouses but they’re still having to barter for candles? I’m no survivalist but it seems to me like they could have come up with something there."

Ah-ha!  When I read that, I suddenly realized that I learned how to make candles from crayons when I was in grade school.  I'm sure crayons could have been scavenged, then melted, and a string used as a wick.  Voila!  Therefore, the trouble acquiring candles was not logical.  I'm sure lots of old crayons were available in the abandoned farmhouses.

The third book is probably the best book in the series and has the least flaws. However, the first two books have to be read in order to enjoy the third book.

I was quite pleased with my reading experience once I finished the third book.  Even though the first two books have many flaws, the story of Alex and Darla is quite compelling and enjoyable.