Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today we are back in the Apocalyptic Universe created by T.L. Payne, and starting a new series, this one is the much anticipated (by me) “Fall of Houston” series- and book one is “No Way Out”.

We first meet some of these characters in the “Days of Want” series, and had a brief introduction as to the situation surrounding their lives in this series…

And that sampling got me very interested in the story.

Will, and his son Cayden, are trying to evacuate Houston. “Evacuate? But I thought no one knew about the EMP in advance?”

No, no one knew about it in advance at all. You see, a massive hurricane, the kind that destroys Houston fairly often, was set to touch down and do it’s damage on the great city.

And THEN an EMP went off. This alone had me very excited for the story, because one, I live in Houston, and two, I love a good hurricane, and I love a good apocalyptic fiction story, and I love good ones with EMPs…

All in all? This was some majorly cool stuff to read about.

And so, with this excitement fuelling me, I launched into “No Way Out” the first book in the Fall of Houston series.

We meet Will and Cayden, who are both still hurting after the loss of Melanie, Will’s wife and Cayden’s mom. They are packing up and hoping the hurricane doesn’t destroy the house, but, as is with the destructive power of hurricanes, if an evacuation has been ordered, there is a good chance you will never see your home in tact ever again.

While on the road, in the terrible dead stop traffic that keeps me from ever evacuating since that one time when my dad insisted we do it and we couldn’t escape the city so we stayed home and I got drunk on the roof willing the hurricane to “blow me”, the entire population of Houston and the surrounding areas with the means to evacuate, proceed to try and all take a handful of roads to escape the storms destruction, and, of course, are stuck.

This “stuck” is the situation they are all in when the EMP goes off and everything stops working. All power goes out, all newer cars stop, and the phones stop working. No one knows what is going on at first, and Will and Cayden’s attention is drawn to a wreck before much can be done anyways. It is in the fiery wreck where Will pulls out another main character, Isabella.

Isabella’s car had been hit by a car driven by Kim, another character who joins the party, and with both of them injured and Will feeling foolishly honor bound, he takes his older jeep, which still works since it isn’t a newer vehicle destroyed by the EMP, and tries to take the ladies to a nearby hospital. It is in this idiotic act of heroism that he is car jacked, and the entire group is on foot, and all of Will’s useful supplies stored in his bag and jeep, are taken with it.

With the storm barreling down on them, and evacuation becoming incvreasingly difficult, and people starting to notice the impacts of the EMP, the group tries to get to a hospital, and then, the bulk of the story really gets underway as they try to get out of the city, or at least get somewhere safe.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but it isn’t just the weather and the EMP they are dealing with in the efforts to get out of the city, either.

This book was quite action packed, and had me on the edge of my seat. I was very impressed with how well the writer captured how things get around her during a storm. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t evacuate, so I am well aware of what this city turns into…And T.L. Payne did a great job showing the chaos that the city becomes, and then adding the extra spice of the EMP attack.

This book series is off to a strong start and I will be reviewing the rest of it, so I highly recommend grabbing yourself some copies so you can read along with these reviews, since I don’t want to spoil all the best parts. Be sure you are following and subscribed to the blog to not miss those posts.

Thanks for Reading!

Abbi