Description: 

The Salvation escapees have forged a shaky alliance, and it’s holding … for the moment.

Their new society is going from strength to strength. They’re building shelters, farming, foraging, and scavenging. Each day things get better, but winter edges closer.

They’re still not ready for the freezing months to come, and now their greatest ally is in danger.

To help them means risking everything.

To abandon them in their time of need jeopardises their own future.

The next seventy-two hours will push them to the brink.

A peaceful solution is off the table, but can they withstand all-out war?

Summer is nearly over. Will they survive until spring?

Or are their hopes of redemption lost forever?

My Review:

As soon as I heard the 5th book had been released, I rushed to download it through KU. 

A friend started reading it before me and she complained that it was really slow and she was ready to DNF. Once I got into it, I knew what she meant.  However, I understood why it was slower at the beginning than the other 4 books. 

The author was trying to show us how much the settlement had grown.  What they’d accomplished and what still needed to be done before the dreaded winter hit.  Some readers will find the details a bit tedious, but I enjoyed them.  Guess I’m just a nerd that way.  

But once I hit chapter 5, it took off like a Q-Thirteen bullet.  I couldn’t put the darn book down.  It even interfered with my naps.  

Once again, we have a host of different characters.  Cassie is still somewhat the main one, but others, like Susan and Nicola, have been given bigger roles.  So, there is a lot of character development.  With so many people in the book, there tends to be a bunch of head hopping but it hasn’t been confusing. 

I am really enjoying how the settlement has learned how to mesh and get along, even with all their differences.  And then there’s the Wanderer’s and Infinity.  Once Cassie convinced the committee they needed to step in and help Eric, the action kept building and building until the calamitic end.  Now, they have a new threat to deal with.  I can’t wait for more. 

My only complaint is the editing got sloppy towards the end, which is pretty common, actually.  There were times when two different people were taking in the same paragraph, or the subject had changed but a new paragraph hadn’t been started.  

The characters have become very real to me and I would love, love, love to see this as a TV series. If you can’t enough of dystopian / post-apocalyptic stories with girt, you need to start this series.  I give this book 5 stars.