Thank you so much to the team at Blackthorn Book Tours for having me on this tour. Check out their Facebook page for more information.

It started with the insects.

The mass die-offs had been a warning unheeded. Before society realized the danger, the Earth had inexorably begun a transformation into a place where life could not survive. A small group found shelter in the Arc, an underground refuge safe from the toxins ravaging the surface.

After centuries of darkness, humanity’s second chance is running out—and Raven Wilder knows it.

Her job fixing the machinery in the Arc makes her aware of how close everything is to breaking down. When the systems fail, the last survivors of the human race will suffocate in the tunnels meant to protect them from the deadly air outside—starting with the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, in an example of history repeating itself, those in charge dismiss her concerns.

When her six-year-old begins showing signs of oxygen deprivation, Raven refuses to go quietly into oblivion.

She will break every rule to keep her daughter alive.

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Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, the Prophet of the Badlands series, and the Daughter of Mars series take place.

His books span adult, young-adult, and middle-grade fiction in multiple genres, predominantly science fiction, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, and fantasy.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Blackthorn Book Tours, and Division Zero Press for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I feel like one of the aspects of doomsday and post apocalyptic novels that I could never wrap my head around was the fact that people sometimes still have children during these time, and are able to raise them as successfully as they can in their situation. Or even just being able to continue to raise children in a way that doesn’t make them traumatic or stressed out after everything that’s going on. I don’t even know if I’m wording this correctly, but that was the thought that kept running through my head when I was reading this novel. I think it got worse when the real bad stuff happened – basically when Raven’s daughter starts to get sick from oxygen deprivation and possibly the toxins that cover the Earth. Like, not only did the world just end as we know it, but now Raven has to somehow save her daughter in this post-apocalyptic world that doesn’t have everything that they would need to live comfortably like before?

This just really stressed me out and I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I were in Raven’s place. And with how everything is right now, this kind of hit a little too close to home since I’ve been really anxious about the future and that’s just been messing me up! So I look at this book and think “what would I do?! How could I protect my babies? How could I make sure they survive?” And then to have Raven’s daughter start to get sick and now she has to figure out what to do, it just really stressed me out.

Besides that odd thought of mine, I think that this book was a good dystopian and I’m curious to see what other kind of novels I should read from Cox. Clearly this book gave me a lot of emotions and maybe I can revisit this again when all of this is… well somewhat back to normal.