Title: Sabotaged World
Series: EMP Aftermath
Author: Grace Hamilton
Publisher: Relay Publishing
Genre: SciFi, Post Apocalyptic, EMP
Release Date: 11th March 2026
BLURB
A deadly storm looms—and an old enemy prepares to strike…
For two years, Bear’s cabin has been a haven from the outside world. Hidden deep in the forest, Bear, Laurel, Mae, Trent, and their dog Jess have built a life for themselves—including a thriving medical clinic run by Laurel serving their isolated community. But their peaceful lives are shattered when a late winter blizzard engulfs the area, just as a fire breaks out and burns a neighbor’s cabin to the ground.
When a second cabin burns, with tragic results, the community is forced to face the ugly truth. Someone is targeting their community, and no one is safe.
Meanwhile, Gideon is on the run. His militia is no match for Bennett’s brutal paramilitary force, and with Sharon and Lisa in tow, he’s desperate for refuge. But a plea for help forces him into a deadly confrontation, and now Bennett will stop at nothing to hunt him down.
Out of options, Gideon heads for Bear’s cabin—the only sanctuary left. But he isn’t the only one bringing danger. As the storm rages and tensions mount, Bear’s sanctuary becomes the battleground for survival.
With enemies closing in, will they stand together—or lose everything?
Goodreads Link
REVIEW
Again the cover fits really well with the other covers of the series and I’d say the image depicts a scene within the book really well.
Sabotaged World picks up 2 years later after the ending of the last book, Lawless World.
The characters we have grown to love over the course of the previous books are split into two sections, there’s Bear, Laurel, Mae, Trent & Jess the dog all living together in the now enlarged cabin that originally belonged to Bear. Everything seems to have settled into a routine, they have joined with locals situated round them to create a thriving community who on the whole look out for each other.
Bear has somewhat come to terms with his issues with his hearing. He quickly realised managing to continue to find hearing aid batteries wasn’t something he could rely on so Bear rather grudgingly, along with his nearest and dearest have learnt a type of sign language that works for them combined with lip reading he manages to get by most of the time. When Bear and Trent go on hunting trips together, Bear is encouraging and allowing Trent to take the lead more. Both Bear and Laurel are secretly happy that their daughter Mae decided against building her own separate cabin and has just added extensions onto Bears original cabin to accommodate their family of four, five including the ever-faithful Jess. Bear and Laurel are pleased that Mae and Trent have ended up with a good sibling like relationship, which they slipped into quite quickly and really easily.
The family are planning for the future, Laurel wants to build a new clinic nearer their own cabin as it would make it much easier for her to care for patients that need to stay at the clinic and would mean she wouldn’t need to be away from the family as much. The protectiveness in Bear wholeheartedly agrees that a clinic closer to their home could be a safer option than where it is situated now. If its near the cabin he will be about in case anything untoward happens. Laurel is starkly aware that she is only one person and is determined to train more people in at least basic first aid as well as gathering more volunteers to train to work at the clinic which will then give her time off to spend with her family and take care of things that need doing at the cabin. Trent has been spending time with Laurel too, picking up on first aid techniques and observing the home remedy type medications that Laurel is trying to gather a decent supply of. Trent has also been paying attention to a young lady who lives nearby called Alyssa and its plain to see he is growing ever fond of her.
Unfortunately, when fires begin to occur and everything points to arson, the peaceful community is equally shocked and horrified. Why would one of their own community put others at risk and who is going to be the next victim. Laurel, Bear, Mae and Trent help everyway they can from treating those injured, to attempting to put out fires and limit damage as well as trying to work out who would be doing something so horrific. When Alyssa is seriously burned, Trent stays with her constantly. Laurel is torn does she stay with her patient or go in search of Bear and Mae….her choice drives a wedge between her and Trent.
Then there’s Gideon, Sharon and Lisa who after Cornell & Williams were defeated decided they wanted to continue to fight to make sure there would be no more Cornell & Williams to try and take over the world. They joined with a group run by a man called Bennet, who initially seemed to have the same values they did but more and more he is just taking what he wants from people rather than protecting them. Gideon, Sharon, Lisa and a group of likeminded people that are also now against Bennett have been in a long hard battle with him for sometime. It comes to a point where their only option is to make a run for it, so Gideon, Sharon & Lisa find themselves on the run with Bennett and his men probably following them, though they hope he just gives up on them. They decide to head to Bears cabin, as Gideon & Mae have kept in touch via the pigeon communication set up. The trio are sure they can lose Bennett and any men he may send after them, if he even bothers.
The long journey to Bears cabin will be hard enough due to old injuries slowing them down but then they end up up two young children who are both reluctant to be with them. So much so they literally sabotage the escape leaving clues for Bennett and his men to follow and shouting out so that he can hear and find them. Gideon, Sharon and Lisa are forced to tell the children some harsh truths so that the children will work with them rather than against them in their attempt to evade capture by Bennett.
Sabotaged World doesn’t end very well for either group. Trent is suffering an injury as well as a broken heart and is feeling somewhat bitter towards Laurel, there’s a now somewhat fractured family, an increasingly ill Mae and a community who now has to rebuild whilst dealing with the realisation that it was in fact two of their own that were being so destructive and deliberately setting the fires.
Things look like they may be looking up for Gideon, Sharon, Lisa and the children when they manage to get a ride in an army vehicle but are they being lulled into a false sense of security.
I really enjoyed catching up with the characters in this book. As in the real world there were some lives lost and not everything goes to plan, people are injured, lives altered forever. There are good characters to only want to help people, bad characters who want to take what others have for themselves and don’t care about the consequences and those in the grey area that are or were good people but due to circumstances have become confused, perhaps a little bitter and those to do bad things which in their mind are justified. The author certainly kept me guessing as to the identity of the culprit deliberately starting the fires was. I had suspicions about a few people with someone who worked at the clinic, a patient and then the actual culprits all being on my list of suspects!
My initial reaction was Wow I didn’t see all that coming! I wanted to reach into the book and give poor Trent a big hug, he has been through enough, and lost more than most but it seems this new harsh world hasn’t finished with him or his new family yet. I can’t wait to read more about these characters and find out if there’s going to be a “relationship” develop between Mae and Gideon, I’m hoping so!
Summing up once again this instalment in the EMP Aftermath is action packed from the beginning to the end. You immediately slip back into this world and are held there hooked to the last words! I’m definitely looking forward to the next book!
No comments:
Post a Comment