The plot is interesting, and the characters feel well fleshed out. The tension feels real and the romance is very slow burn. You can feel what the main character feels and understand her motivation. I very much enjoyed the setting, the plot, the characters and the real feeling intensity. The only issue is that there’s a switch in pov for two chapters that are confusing.

Ellena Reed's life is now in tatters: her ex-husband is in prison, her home is in foreclosure, & she is awaiting confirmation that her career as an EMT is also done. At her wits end, she reluctantly agrees to accompany stepsister, Button (aka Elizabeth), on a camping trip. The night they arrive nuclear warheads hit multiple targets in the US.

Their fellow survivors are a mum & son, & a man who claims to be ex-SEAL. His answers to Ellena's questions are a little too pat & she's sure he's hiding something. The few survivors at the site hunker down together for the 3 days in which the fallout will be the worst, but with no word from the outside & the animals around the swamp starting to act out, it will soon be time to move on but where?

I don't know why but I tend to like postapocalyptic reads, people learning to cope with adversity etc. I thought the cover for this book was really good & it actually made me think it was going to be a lot darker storyline than it actually turned out to be. My heart did sink a little when I realised there was a canine character, Winter the dog, as I knew I'd spend the rest of the book on tenterhooks hoping nothing happens to him. (He is still alive at the end of the book so don't worry.)

It's a gripping read but some of the characters are not really developed enough (Button & the mother & son included) & Button became really irritating at points. I enjoyed it enough to finish it though. It could be improved upon in parts but it was fine. 3.75 stars (rounded up)

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Cork Place Press, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This is a genre I'm generally forgiving of, and I really wanted to like this book, but it was a struggle to get through.

I couldn't connect to any of the characters. I found them unlikable, which, in itself, isn't a deal breaker, but they were inconsistent and some of their behavior (especially Button's) felt over the top to the point of caricature. Towards the end of the book when some characters changed their behavior for the better, it was so jarringly sudden that it felt like a switch being thrown rather than growth.

I didn't feel that enough research had been put into the science related to the story, down to the behavior of wildlife.

The happenings, one after another, felt like the disaster story equivalent of a daytime soap opera. I think the book wanted to be an adventure disaster thriller, but the pacing and events were disjointed, providing instead a group of despondent, disingenuous and bitter characters tripping blindly down a hazy trail. At the end of that trail the author basically said "forget all that, they are happy and hopeful!"

There's potential here, but I don't think it was even close to being realized.