Title: Survive The Turmoil
Series: Small Town EMP
Author: Grace Hamilton
Publisher: Relay Publishing
Genre: Post Apocalyptic, EMP
Release Date: 11th June 2025
BLURB
In the battle for survival, one family makes its final stand…
In the aftermath of a devastating EMP attack, Austin and Amanda must seek out a new safe haven. When the tiny plane flying them to Seattle is forced to make an emergency landing, they find themselves stranded with a group of kids at a tiny mountain airstrip, miles from their destination. And they’re not alone…
Lydia Koble’s shadow stretches even into the remote Washington wilderness. When a truck full of armed militia pulls up, Austin and Amanda fear the worst. But it’s not Koble’s forces who have captured them. It’s something even more dangerous.
As Koble’s grip tightens on the surrounding area, more people rise up against her. An armed rebel force has built a base in the mountains—and Austin, Amanda, and the kids have strayed into their territory.
Austin never wanted to fight in a rebellion. He just wants to keep his family safe. But sometimes “safe” isn’t enough.
Sometimes you have to fight to survive…
REVIEW
The covers for this series of books go really well together and you can usually visualise a scene from within the book that they are depicting. They would certainly catch my eye on a bookstore shelf and let you know the genre of the books is post-apocalyptic.
This one picks up right where bk 5 left off so you are straight back into the “on the spot” decision making and action. It picks up with the characters we have grown to love in mortal danger once again, this time there is very little they can do but hope for the best and put their faith, hope, trust and lives in the hands of their pilot Connor, whom they have only just met. Connor has a plan, to land on a small probably forgotten airstrip. Then he reveals calling it an air strip may be being a little generous as it is really a short runway of turf! Connor has his own plans and they don’t involve guiding the group any further, he has friends nearby who can hopefully get him back to Spokane. Connor does hand them the only map he has saying they’ll need it more than he will. He reckons it will take them between 3 and 5 days to get to Seattle.
When the weather adds to the woes of the group travelling to Seattle, they take cover in some buildings where they are initially held at gunpoint by pregnant Jen. Jen eventually warms to the group when they prove they mean her no harm. Jen gives them bottled water and tells them she and her husband Chad fled Seattle, that its really bad there and maybe they should rethink where they are going. Austin and the rest of group know they are heading into danger but also know they don’t really have a choice. They didn’t look for trouble, trouble found them in the form of Lydia Koble and it was better to face the danger than hide and be constantly looking over their shoulders. They also need to contact this man called Mason to hand over paperwork from Professor Novak.
Whilst they are on the road they are picked up by a group of people who take them to their camp, Skykomish. Skykomish camp is made up of people who have been forced to leave Seattle or have fallen foul of Lydia Koble and her roving gangs. Seattle is under martial law and a no-go area. Skykomish Camp is fairly welcoming but reluctant to fully welcome Austin and his family until they have met their Commander, Alistair Mason. Could it really be that the friends of the man they are looking for may well have found them!
Though they never wanted to be separated again Austin, Amanda, Savannah, Malachi & Andy do end up in different groups on different missions. Andy actually gets to have a young friend called Ben who is his own age, and the son of Hank. Hank is sort of the second in Command and its clear the people at Skykomish respect him.
New characters that were introduced in this book that I liked were Hank and his son Ben who immediately took to Austin & his family including Andy. We get to see Ben & Andy playing with the dogs. Andy actually having a little childhood freedom and a snippet of normal life for a change. Though of course with Lydia Koble hanging around and the seemingly immortal Voss that peace doesn’t last for long. I also liked Davis the moody, older guy who doesn’t seem to care yet always seems to come through when he is needed.
Though Austin, Amanda etc do live alongside and co work and plan ahead with the community of Skykomish their upmost loyalty is to their own little group. It soon becomes apparent that there is a spy in the midst and Austin, Amanda etc have to choose whom they trust very carefully. The Spy manages to kill a valuable hostage before he can reveal any information, as well as murdering other that stand in their way. When support they expected to be available from nearby Tacoma is no longer available Skykomish need to decide what to do and the leadership role ends up being thrust at Austin which he reluctantly accepts but does insist on putting ideas to the vote.
I continued to love the characters of Austin, Amanda, Savannah, Malachi and Andy all the way through the series. I enjoyed the smaller parts of the plot, the lesser difficulties the characters had, such as Malachi deciding whether to accompany Austin, Amanda, Savannah & Andy to Seattle or to stay behind in Grangeville in an attempt to protect his mother. You really see a change in the character of Malachi who started out a rather naïve young boy who regularly went to church meetings and was opposed to violence, to the confident young man Malachi became, willing to take up arms and fight to protect those he loved as well as those unable to protect themselves. Savannah always seemed to be independent and perhaps ore confident and worldly wise than Malachi. Austin also changed a lot, from the maybe over protective father who charged in to battle for his family to the Austin who realised his daughter was a grown young woman with ideas of her own and who was fully capable of fighting when she needed to. The Austin at the end of the series couldn’t wait to relinquish his leadership role in Skykomish, to retreat to a quieter life with Amanda. I think Austin had pushed himself along with his family to see the battle with Lydia Koble through to the end. By that end Austin and Amanda are tired of all the travelling, struggling and fighting, they desperately want a slower pace and to provide stability for Andy. Whereas Savannah and Malachi want to be involved in the rebuilding and restructuring of the Skykomish community, volunteering to be on the Community Committee whilst knowing they will always have a stable home waiting with Austin and Amanda.
My immediate thoughts were that there was lots of action, intelligence collection missions and fighting at the Koble & Voss versus Austin & Co war continues. We meet quite a few new characters, sadly some of these good character’s lives are lost in the many battles & missions.
I'll admit I wasn’t overly keen on Austin, Amanda & Andy riding off into the sunset leaving Savannah & Malachi to help restructure things with what was left of the Skykomish community. I thought they would have wanted to be with Andy and the rest of the family. There was a nice cosy Christmas setting for the ending/epilogue with lots of happy family vibes. It would have been nice to have a catch up with Hank & Ben too but they were mentioned. There were a few loose ends sort of just left in Grangeville such as Malachi’s mother, but I guess sometimes the author leaves things open for the reader to interpret as they wish.
Summing up, this has been an amazing series, full of fantastic characters, “good” & “bad”
There were many battles fought on various scales, from the ones with Uncle Zeke who wanted Andy back, to Voss & Koble who wanted to rule the world! All the smaller battles built up, into the final stand in Survive The Turmoil. I don’t really want to totally give things away so I can’t say much more, though I was quite proud I had guessed who the spy was.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the whole series and boy what a final book!!
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