"Ashen Winter" by Mike Mullin~Warning! Super Volcano Eruption Dystopian!

Where will you be when Yellowstone National Park's super volcano erupts? It will.  It's just a matter of when. Mike Mullin has written two very impressive YA fiction novels about the inevitable eruption in the United States's Mid-West that cripples and virtually destroys the country. His first book in the series, "Ashfall" and this one, "Ashen Winter" tells the story of a teenaged couple who learns to survive, along with others in a world completely rewritten by the volcano's devastation. It's a story of humanity's survival...of the end of Eden and the loss of innocence coupled with the struggle for sanity and hope, literally, amidst the ashes.  As always, it's love that's found to be the highest order of all things.

Mullin shows the evils of mankind in their most blatant...the "what ifs" at their worst. And, he shows the courage of women and men under duress, as well. Many times I found myself holding my breath, and then cheering for Darla, the stronger-than-the-men young woman, who is a genius at almost everything she puts her hand to including mechanics! Often, I clenched my teeth and shook my head in frustration at the stops and starts, the things and people that held back Alex, the teenager from whose eyes and ears we first experienced the disaster.  The characters running amok in these books are worthy of zombie-land!  The main characters, however, are salt-of-the-earth types who we can easily recognize among our friends and family.  The struggle to survive is the driving force of their lives.

This is a novel that's not easy to read in terms of it's plausibility. It's not easy to "hear." The Super Volcano eruption could happen. It might happen in our time..any day. What's for sure is that this is a set of books that would do well to be taught in public and private high schools throughout the United States! Forewarned is to be a little better prepared. Because if it ever happens...all bets are off and it's literally every single woman for herself.

5 stars blazing for this fabulous book!!


Summary :

It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Here's an interesting YouTube video for you, but don't watch it if you're easily frightened:

 

More About Mike Mullin:

Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really hoping this writing thing works out.

Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. ASHFALL is his first novel.

You might want to visit Mike on his website at:  http://mikemullinauthor.com

You may wish to purchase his books on:  Amazon    or  Barnes & Noble

From his website, you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook


Here's a trailer of his first book in this series:  "Ashfall"

I  hope we never see this sort of eruption of our society in our time, but it's always great to know there are those who will survive and that they may be the ones who represent the best within us.

Read "Ashfall" and "Ashen Winter," I know you'll love these books and so will the teens in your life.

Deborah/TheBookishDame