The Last Cabin

Jo's husband dies. She decides to take her daughters and move up on the mountain. She becomes self sufficient in her cabin. Jo needs to heal from the trauma, and finds reverting back to a simpler life is the best way.

Jo's oldest daughter goes into the city for college. Then the EMP blast hits. All power and electronics are wiped out. To make matters much worse, terrorists and out to kill as many Americans as possible. Jo must head onto campus to retrieve her daughter.

Mom and daughter are reunited just in time. They make the trip back to the cabin. Jo goes out to help the locals townspeople defend against the terrorists. This gives the terrorists an opportunity to snatch Jo's youngest daughter.

Jo and her oldest daughter need to do a rescue mission to retrieve the youngest daughter. The terrorists have realized that Jo is a worthy opponent. So they have called in reinforcements. There are other ideas going on in this book, like Jo slowly being interested in the local sheriff. Also Jo has a good relationship with Mags, who runs the local grocery store.

Overall a good book from a great author. Combination of preppers dealing with the end of the world scenarios.

The Owl Thief

A woman named Utah is an artist. She makes large scale sculptures. She also sells intricate masks online. There is a worldwide bank hack that closes down banking and any electronic transactions. Right after this, a real estate agent is murdered. They find one of Utah's masks on his dead face.

Utah tries to visit the sheriff to answer any questions. The sheriff is gone and his force is following to help keep order in a nearby big city. Utah then proceeds to clear her name. She is running for the office of mayor in a tiny town. Her competition is spreading lies that Utah killed the real estate agent, and put her mask on him.

During her investigation, Utah finds that the dead real estate agent's widow was trying to sell a large plot of land she bought in town. She and her deceased husband were blackmailing men on the town council to try to swing the vote on whether the city would buy their land.

There are a large host of characters in this novel. We learn about a lot of people in this town, including the city council members/spouses, Utah's mom and step dad, the new owner of the local diner, as well as Utah's pets. It is hard to keep all the people straight. Maybe if this is a continuing series, there would be time to get to known the residents a little better.

'89 Walls

Seth is a high school student. He has had a crush on Quinn since entering high school. In his senior year, he decides to pass her a note declaring his love. At the time, Quinn has a rich boyfriend. Eventually she break ups with said boyfriend and dates Seth.

Quinn herself is from a relatively wealthy family. She and Seth share a history class together. Then have a cool teacher who engages them with current political events. This drives Quinn to debate her own father, something getting into heated arguments with him.

Seth is poor. His dad died at war when Seth was young. His mom has multiple sclerosis. As a result, Seth must work a job and figures he needs to forget about college to take care of his mom. His history teacher talks him into applying for college. When Seth tells him mom about this, she eventually kills herself.

Quinn goes away to college in Washington DC. Seth moves in with his aunt. But he plans to apply for financial aid and go to college himself a semester later. Is there a sequel in the works here?