BLOG TOUR: Aurora - David Koepp

When the lights go out no one is safe…

A planet without power.

When a solar storm hits the earth, the lights go out across the planet. But this time the blackout won’t be over soon – it could last for years. Aubrey and her stepson now face the biggest challenge of their lives.

 

A society without rules.

Soon they hear rumours of riots, the struggle for food becomes real, and even within their small communities, the rule of law is collapsing. Aubrey’s estranged brother Thom, a self-made billionaire who abandoned her years ago, retreats to a gilded desert bunker where he can ride out the crisis in perfect luxury.

 

A race to build a better world…

But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of a personal reckoning long overdue…

 

What did I think?

Aurora by David Koepp stood out as being something a little bit different from other books I have read and I really enjoyed it.  I started out thinking it was science fiction but it is scarily realistic and a thriller element is added to keep the pages turning at lightning speed.

The main part of the story is a coronal mass ejection (CME) hitting earth and taking out the power.  The book starts by telling us about The Carrington Event, the CME that hit earth in 1859, and expected to occur every 150 years.  Three little words at the end of that section chilled me to the bone: "We are overdue."

The scene is set and I was already thinking how real this could be.  Scientists check and double check their data, governments refuse to believe the scale of the event, and billionaires race to their bunkers.  Aubrey and Thom are siblings but their lives couldn't be more different.  When the world goes dark, Aubrey is stuck in Aurora, Illinois with a layabout stepson and Thom is in his state of the art bunker in California.

I love how the different character storylines flow and intermingle; I thought I wouldn't remember who certain characters were but they each have a role to play and fit into the story perfectly.  Just seeing how different people react to such massive challenges is so interesting to read - it's amazing how people can react to change and it's heartwarming to see that instead of being selfish, it's better to work together.  Of course, some people are only looking out for themselves and they will never change.

The writing is so vivid and the storyline is so gripping that I'm not surprised it's being made into a film.  I could have read so much more than the 400 pages included in the book, in fact I was disappointed to reach the end as I wanted to find out more.  

Scarily realistic, Aurora is gripping, thrilling and eye-opening; I can't wait to watch it on the big screen.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: Ash Mountain - Helen Fitzgerald

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants…

Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life – and a woman and a land in crisis – and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir, and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget…

What did I think?

For such a short book, at only 210 pages long, there's an awful lot going on in Ash Mountain.  It just shows the quality of Helen Fitzgerald's writing that she can cram so much in over so few pages.  It is written so beautifully that it feels like every single word has been carefully chosen and crafted into this deeply disturbing and haunting story.  

The main character of Fran is very damaged, and it's not shown how damaged until much later in the story, but she gets on with her life thanks to her dark humour.  The way that Fran takes her Dad places had me absolutely howling with laughter at times and I have to applaud Helen Fitzgerald's genius for adding some humour to an otherwise sobering subject. 

I wasn't really sure in what direction the story was going to take me as we flick back and forth in time but when past and present collide I actually had to choke back a sob.  The writing is so vivid and filled with emotion that I felt completely drained at the end of the book; I felt as devastated as the scorched earth when past crimes were laid bare.  I feel so sad just thinking of it now; even though the characters are fictional it feels so very real to me.

Ash Mountain is a horrifying, beautiful and mesmeric story of a completely devastating event; I can't stop looking at the hypnotic photo on the cover, which is a real photo from the Australian bushfires of 2019 which brings terrifying authenticity to this already vivid story.  This haunting and evocative story is not one that I will easily forget.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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About the author:

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Her 2019 dark comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in both The Guardian and Daily Telegraph. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband.

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BLOG TOUR: Blackout - Marc Elsberg

Blackout is such a thought-provoking book that I was thrilled to be invited to join the blog tour.  Whilst I might have been forgiven for expecting total carnage and an eat your partner type of disaster thriller, it's more of a slow-burner that makes you look at the world in a completely different light (if you excuse the unintended 'light' pun).  So without further ado, let's see what I thought of Blackout by Marc Elsberg.

THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER 

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE

A 21ST-CENTURY HIGH-CONCEPT DISASTER THRILLER 

Tomorrow will be too late.

A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home.

Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street – every light in the city is dead. 

Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse. 

Plunged into darkness, people are freezing. Food and water supplies dry up. The death toll soars. 

Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers. 

Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it’s too late?

What did I think?

I was really eager to read this book and I made the fatal mistake of having a sneaky read of the first page when it arrived meaning that I had to start it immediately.  It literally starts with a bang as the traffic lights go out in Milan causing mass chaos on the roads as cars pile into each other.  The main character, Piero Manzano, is one of those affected as he is driving home when the lights go out.  As the plot thickens it would appear that somebody has attacked not just Milan, but Europe itself.

There were so many things I didn't think of if there was no electricity and Blackout certainly gets you thinking about what you would do if there was no electricity.  There would be no fuel at the petrol stations as the pumps use electricity to pump fuel to the forecourt from the underground tanks.  Patients in ITU on life support would die without electricity to power life support machines and monitor vital signs. The main effect that really shocked me was the inability to cool down the nuclear reactors which leads to the main sweaty palm moments in Blackout.

My brain was whirring throughout the story, but more about our reliance on electricity than the events in the book.  After all, it's not that long ago when electricty wasn't available in every home and streets were still lit by gas lamps during World War II.  I think the world would literally grind to a halt if our power supply was removed but I also think it would be quite liberating to go back to more simple manual times.  We may then discover some of that elusive time, of which we never seem to have enough.

Overall I wasn't as gripped and panicked as I thought I would be.  I think that sometimes it was quite technical and a little bit over my head, but I admit that when people start talking in IT-speak my brain tends to go into meltdown.  There were a few too many characters in the book to keep track of who was who and in hindsight I wish I'd written them down and created my own cast list.

Blackout is the most thought-provoking book I have read in a long time and I have continued to think about the devastating effects long after turning the final page.  I was just slightly disappointed that I didn't get the feeling of panic and fear coming through in the writing, but it could perhaps have been a little bit lost in the translation from German to English.  It's well worth a read though, just to realise how lucky we are to have power at the flick of a switch.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

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Blackout - Marc Elsberg

THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER 

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE

A 21ST-CENTURY HIGH-CONCEPT DISASTER THRILLER 

Tomorrow will be too late.

A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home.

Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street – every light in the city is dead. 

Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse. 

Plunged into darkness, people are freezing. Food and water supplies dry up. The death toll soars. 

Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers. 

Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it’s too late?

What did I think?

I was really eager to read this book and I made the fatal mistake of having a sneaky read of the first page when it arrived meaning that I had to start it immediately.  It literally starts with a bang as the traffic lights go out in Milan causing mass chaos on the roads as cars pile into each other.  The main character, Piero Manzano, is one of those affected as he is driving home when the lights go out.  As the plot thickens it would appear that somebody has attacked not just Milan, but Europe itself.

There were so many things I didn't think of if there was no electricity and Blackout certainly gets you thinking about what you would do if there was no electricity.  There would be no fuel at the petrol stations as the pumps use electricity to pump fuel to the forecourt from the underground tanks.  Patients in ITU on life support would die without electricity to power life support machines and monitor vital signs. The main effect that really shocked me was the inability to cool down the nuclear reactors which leads to the main sweaty palm moments in Blackout.

My brain was whirring throughout the story, but more about our reliance on electricity than the events in the book.  After all, it's not that long ago when electricty wasn't available in every home and streets were still lit by gas lamps during World War II.  I think the world would literally grind to a halt if our power supply was removed but I also think it would be quite liberating to go back to more simple manual times.  We may then discover some of that elusive time, of which we never seem to have enough.

Overall I wasn't as gripped and panicked as I thought I would be.  I think that sometimes it was quite technical and a little bit over my head, but I admit that when people start talking in IT-speak my brain tends to go into meltdown.  There were a few too many characters in the book to keep track of who was who and in hindsight I wish I'd written them down and created my own cast list.

Blackout is the most thought-provoking book I have read in a long time and I have continued to think about the devastating effects long after turning the final page.  I was just slightly disappointed that I didn't get the feeling of panic and fear coming through in the writing, but it could perhaps have been a little bit lost in the translation from German to English.  It's well worth a read though, just to realise how lucky we are to have power at the flick of a switch.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

The Last Night - Cesca Major

In a quiet coastal village, Irina spends her days restoring furniture, passing the time in peace and hiding away from the world. A family secret, long held and never discussed, casts a dark shadow and Irina chooses to withdraw into her work. When an antique bureau is sent to her workshop, the owner anonymous, Irina senses a history to the object that makes her uneasy. As Irina begins to investigate the origins of the piece, she unearths the secrets it holds within...

Decades earlier in the 1950s, another young woman kept secrets. Her name was Abigail. Over the course of one summer, she fell in love, and dreamed of the future. But Abigail could not know that a catastrophe loomed, and this event would change the course of many lives for ever...

What did I think?

The Last Night is an absolutely breathtaking novel by Cesca Major, I have goosebumps just thinking about it to write my review.  It starts in 1952 with quite a disturbing scene when a young girl finds a body in the sea.  All I could think about at first is whose body is it and how did it get there, but Cesca Major very cleverly distracted me with such interesting stories of two vibrant main characters.

Told from a few different viewpoints, the main characters being Irina in the present day of 2016 and Abigail in the past of 1952.  The two become linked in a most intriguing way when Irina receives an old bureau to restore.  With locked drawers and hidden compartments, Irina strives to unearth the secrets held within.  Some items appear strange and worthless but they clearly meant a lot to the owner of the bureau for the items to be hidden and kept safe.  Items that we keep to remind us of a treasured memory are so very priceless and irreplaceable, making them worth more than gold.

Irina is such an interesting woman.  We learn early on that she has some terrible scarring on her face but it is not until near the end of the book that we find out what happened to cause this.  Her guilt and fear cause her to push away her loved ones but it is to her ex, Andrew, that she turns when she tries to uncover the secrets of the bureau and things start to go bump in the night.

It is these strange, ghostly and unexplainable incidents that compel Irina to follow the clues from the hidden treasure.  So she visits Lynmouth and hears the story of Abigail, a young woman from the 1950s.  Abigail had to leave Bristol and her best friend, Mary, when her mother died and was living up the hill in Lynton with her sister, Connie, and her creepy husband, Larry.  The tension in the house was palpable at times and the air with thick with the underlying threat that Abigail wasn't exactly safe when she was alone with Larry. When Abigail becomes close to local lad, Richard, my heart was singing as the buds of young love started to bloom.  But disaster was just around the corner...

Told with such breathtaking vividness, and based on true events, The Last Night is written so beautifully that it broke my heart in two. The powerful emotional writing had me struggling to contain my fear and my tears as I raced through the pages of this amazing book. With such stunning narrative, Cesca Major has ensured that events of that night, the last night, will never be forgotten.  There's not a word out of place in this fabulous five star read and it's a book I know that I will remember for many years to come.

I chose to read an ARC of The Last Night and this is my honest opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon