Survival

In the list of my own personal irrational (or maybe rational?) fears is an EMP pulse. As someone who works by an airport (planes crashing!), lives 40 minutes by car from my office (that is a LONG WALK HOME), and has allergies, I don’t know how well I’d do without modern technology and connivences. Unfortunately, that’s what Jace and the town of Shadow Ridge has been dealing with in SURVIVAL by Lisa Harris. Jace was home for the weekend, visiting his family, when all heck breaks loose. As former military, he has zero interest in following his father’s footsteps into law enforcement. But that’s not in the cards for Jace. Two hundred plus days after ‘the quake’, Jace is the de facto town sheriff and leader, dealing with both a crisis of purpose and crisis of faith. I appreciated Jace’s concern for his family, the other citizens of the town, and his growing feelings towards Morgan. There is even a cute conversation between Jace and Morgan about protecting all the other widows as much as he is protecting her! To be candid, though, my favorite character of the novel is Noah, Morgan’s son. Noah is fun and full of life. Imagine trying to explain to a 6-year-old that there are no more YouTube videos, no more video games, and no more candy! I’m surprised at how well Noah is dealing with all he’s had to deal with in the past year. The romance between Jace and Morgan is more of a secondary plot, with the primary story being Jace protecting the townspeople and solving crimes. And I am ok with that choice. I didn’t need the romance to overshadow all the other aspects of the novel. I did appreciate how Jace stands up for Morgan when a sheriff from a nearby town interrogates her. That scene exemplified Jace’s feelings without all the sappy love scenes. The story was engaging from the start (see above note on my EMP fear!). I’d label this more speculative fiction rather than dystopia. But it certainly has those elements, in addition to romance, suspense, and mystery. The setting of small-town West Texas provides a small group of characters who interact and try to survive together. The story has a modern Western vibe, with horse-riding characters using solar chargers on their phones. While the novel is told from Jace’s point of view, I would have appreciated more insight into Morgan’s point of view in the novel. Understanding more of how Morgan is dealing with her own grief, parenting Noah, and developing feelings for Jace would have added more depth to the story. I also found the ending of the novel to be rushed. This might have been a result of the shorter nature of the story. I would have liked more details as to how the different plot lines were wrapped up. Kyle Tait’s audio narration was well done. The narration was conversational, while also giving life to Jace’s thoughts and words. It’s been a while since I’ve heard that Texas drawl and I certainly found myself missing it after listening to this novel. The dialog between characters was distinct, making it easier to identify different characters while listening. The audio production was clear with no issues while listening at 1.25X speed. As I’ve been struggling with sitting still to ‘read’, listening to this novel was a win for me. My attention was engaged while going about my daily tasks. Overall, I enjoyed this novel. There are enough open-ended questions after the epilogue and plenty of other characters to explore that I’m interested in reading more of this series. Probably while gripping my life straw and solar charger for my device!