Book Review: Edge of Madness by Kyla Stone

Title: Edge of Madness

Author: Kyla Stone

Series: Edge of Collapse #2

Page Count: 320

Publish Date: February 17, 2020

Publisher: Paper Moon Press

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Synopsis:

In a world without power, can one man protect his son?

On the five-year anniversary of his wife Hannah’s disappearance, small-town cop Noah Sheridan takes his son Milo to a local ski resort for some much needed father-son time.

In a blink, the power grid goes out. Phones and cars stop working. What starts as a day of holiday fun soon turns into a deadly fight for survival.

And when an impending blizzard cuts off the town from the rest of civilization, it’ll take everything Noah has to keep his family and friends alive.

When the country goes dark, ordinary people find themselves facing the end of the world as they know it. With society collapsing before their eyes, they’ll have to risk everything to protect their home and the people they love.

Edge of Madness

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My Review:

After following Hannah in the previous book, our focus shifts to her husband and son, Noah and Miles, along with fellow Fall Creek resident Quinn.

This book starts off slow. A pre-Christmas ski trip sounds like a lot of fun until a power outage strands them on the ski lift. Not knowing this is an EMP attack, they wait to be rescued.

And they wait, and wait, and wait some more. Despite the dropping temperatures and deteriorating weather conditions, they keep on waiting. This creates a boring section that has the reader and characters stuck in a waiting pattern for something to happen.

Now, granted, something does happen and it’s tragic, to say the least, but the sheer amount of waiting we do bogs the story down right from the beginning.

As they escape the ski lift, it becomes clear this is not a typical power outage but something much worse and now their true task begins, getting back to the safety of Fall Creek and figuring out how they will survive in a post-EMP world in the depths of winter.

Of course, the struggle to survive in such conditions isn’t all that Noah has to contend with. His son, Miles, has a medical condition that requires regular doses of medication, which of course is in limited supply thanks to a pre-EMP blizzard that hit the area.

Now, while I understand a lot of people have medical conditions like this, it seems like an overused plot point in post-EMP books – this is not the only one I have read where a child of the main character has a condition reliant on daily medication. So, as realistic as the situation is, I feel like it’s overused in post-apocalyptic books.

Plus, the number of times Noah asks Miles if he’s feeling okay gets repetitive real quick. I get it, he’s concerned for his son’s well-being and needs to ensure he is alright, but after the first few I feel like it could have been more spread out in the book.

Though a small town, Fall Creek has a capable leader in Rosamond, who is the “mayor” of the town – though I believe her actual title is superintendent. While she doesn’t show up until about a third of the way through the book, her calm approach to keeping the masses from panicking showed she knows what she is doing. Given the situation, even the most relaxed people out there are bound to panic or turn to violence, but here, at the beginning of the crisis, she does well to reassure them.

Another pair of strong characters is Quinn and her grandma Mollie, affectionately known as Gran. Quinn is a fairly typical teenager, mostly raised by her grandparents because her mother is a drug addict. She hasn’t had the easiest life, but she is strong and capable in her own way.

A lot of this can be attributed to her grandparents. They have done an amazing job of raising her and Gran knows many skills that are crucial to the town’s survival, such as how to conserve heat in a home, how to stretch food to make it last, and many old-school skills. I can’t imagine how things would go without this knowledge.

Quinn as also the first person to realize what had happened, thanks to all of her grandparent’s knowledge and the many books she’s read.

There is one character, that feels too conveniently placed. Like what’s the chance that an expert in a particular field just happens to be in this small town when an EMP strikes? Granted, their presence in the book is small but again, too obviously put there for plot purposes.

We also get a small tidbit, that shows a particular connection to Pike, Hannah’s kidnapper, and someone in town.

As expected, as the days begin to tick by, people start to panic and turn on each other. Some are willing to pool their resources for the greater good, while others want to keep supplies to themselves thinking that is the best strategy.

Toss in the usual criminals and drug addicts, and before you know it, violence is erupting. The breakdown of society is inevitable, and it’s something we saw in snippets during Hannah’s story in the first book. But here, we get a closer look at it.

This is where the story truly took off. Watching people struggle to survive in dangerous conditions is entertaining, but tossing in people with ill intent causing mass destruction and loss of life is where you truly get to see the real after-effects of society’s collapse.

Tragedy was inevitable and going through those blood-filled events added a lot to the story. It also forced some characters to grow a lot in a short amount of time.

It also left a mystery on how one particular event was allowed to happen. I’m sure we will find out how and why it occurred in the future, but it certainly left me curious.

The introduction of a particular group towards the end of the book adds a new element as well. While it can be argued that their presence is good for the town, I’m not entirely convinced. Only time will tell whether this decision was the right one to make or not.

While slow to start, Edge of Madness picks up with each chapter. We get to see good world-building, plenty of character development – especially surrounding Quinn, and with stakes raised at each turn as the town begins to battle with the horrors of surviving in a post-EMP world.

I have added the next book in the series to my TBR and can’t wait to see what comes next for the residents of Fall Creek, but also Hannah, Liam, and Pike.

I hope you enjoyed my review of Edge of Madness. Have you read this book?

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