Tag: apocalypse fiction

Review: Silence Beneath Fire by Magda Mizzi

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

Silence can heal. Or it can be where danger learns your name.

Annie thought she had saved Jude from his past. But the world around them has fallen into a quiet that feels wrong—too still, too watchful. As she tries to protect what remains of him, guilt follows her for everything he’s endured, and every choice she makes could cost them both.

Moving through hostile territory, they uncover secrets, betrayals, and a threat years in the making. From the ruins of Kooragang to experiments gone terribly wrong, survival will demand more than courage. It will demand trust.

But trust has a price.

As danger closes in, Annie and Jude must rely on each other in ways that strip away fear, pretence, and the distance they’ve kept between them. What begins as a fight to survive becomes something deeper—a reckoning that will redefine loyalty, love, and what it truly means to be human.

Favorite Lines:

“You don’t have to apologize…Not for being alive.”

“That kind of love didn’t flinch. It held on through silence, through fear, through ever kind of ruin. She remembered thinking, even back then, that maybe she wanted something like that—not the drama, not the war-torn madness, but the truth of it. The knowing. Someone who saw her, really saw her, and didn’t look away.”

“She wanted a love that endured fire—and came back whole.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

From the first few pages, you’re dealing with a world where things have gone very, very wrong—corporate experimentation, engineered children, a virus that’s reshaped humanity into something violent and unrecognizable. And instead of slowly explaining it all, the story just trusts you to catch up. It works more often than not.

At the center is Jude, though it takes a minute to fully understand what that means. He’s not just a survivor. He’s something altered. Enhanced, maybe. Damaged, definitely. The book slowly pulls that apart instead of dumping it on you all at once, which keeps him interesting even when the plot starts moving fast.

Annie, on the other hand, is the anchor. She’s practical, sharp, and just grounded enough to keep the story from drifting too far into the sci-fi side of things. The dynamic between them is probably the strongest part of the book. There’s history there, but also a lot unsaid. You feel it more in what they avoid than what they actually talk about.

The pacing is quick, but not careless. There’s a constant sense of movement—walking, hiding, running, surviving—and it gives the book this restless energy. Even the quieter scenes, like the campsite conversations, don’t really feel safe. They feel temporary. Like something is always about to go wrong. And usually it does.

The infected—VFPs—aren’t exactly reinventing the genre, but they don’t need to. They’re effective because the story doesn’t overcomplicate them. They’re fast, violent, and unpredictable. That’s enough. The real tension comes from everything around them: the collapsing infrastructure, the isolation, and especially the people who are still trying to control what’s left of the world.

That’s where the book starts to open up.

The “Chimera” concept adds another layer that pushes this beyond a straightforward survival story. Jude isn’t just surviving the virus—he’s tied to its origin in a way that feels personal and unsettling. The reveal isn’t subtle, but it lands because of how it reframes everything you’ve already seen.

There’s also a noticeable shift once they reach the island. Up until then, it feels like a survival story with emotional undercurrents. After that, it becomes something heavier. Trust, fear, community, and how quickly all of that can collapse. The sequence there is chaotic in a way that feels intentional. You don’t get clean resolutions. You get panic, mistakes, and consequences.

Ultimately, it is very clear that this is a world where no one really gets to rest.

Summary:

Overall, this is a fast-moving post-apocalyptic survival story with strong character dynamics and a sci-fi edge, following two survivors navigating a virus-ravaged world while uncovering a deeper conspiracy tied to one of them. Happy reading!

Check out Silence Beneath Fire here!

 

Review: The Long Return by Scott E. Adams

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

In the forgotten logging town of Blowville, some memories refuse to stay buried.

Decades after the hemlock mills fell silent, Jonas Clarke has built a new life far from the shadows of Bailey Run. But when fate draws him back to the place he once called home, he returns as a man with only fragments of his past; haunted by a name, a feeling, and the sense that something in those woods still waits for him.

As Jonas begins to piece together the life he lost, he is pulled into the long-quiet mysteries that shaped Blowville’s darkest years: a troubled town, secrets sealed beneath the hollow tree, and the uneasy pact forged by the men who tried to bury the truth. With each revelation, Jonas uncovers not only the story of a town swallowed by its own history, but the part he played in it, and the price that was paid to keep its secrets hidden.

Book Three brings the saga to its final reckoning, bridging past and present as Blowville’s last unanswered questions rise to the surface.

Favorite Lines:

“He felt as though he had just clawed his way back from somewhere real.”

“You’re becoming yourself. Not whoever you were before, but who you choose to be now.”

“They aged together quietly, without hurry or drama. Their love did not flare; it glowed, steady as a coal ember in winter.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

There’s something quietly unsettling about The Long Return, and I don’t mean that in a horror sense right away. It starts soft. Almost too soft. A boy wakes up with no memory, in a hospital, with nothing to hold onto except a single name—Clara—and a body that remembers more than his mind does. From the first few chapters, you can feel the story leaning into that slow, patient unraveling of identity. It doesn’t rush you. It lets you sit in the discomfort of not knowing.

What really surprised me is how much of the book isn’t about the mystery at all—at least not at first. Jonas builds an entire life in Altoona. He heals, he works, he marries Evelyn, he has children, and for a long stretch, the story almost convinces you that the past doesn’t matter. That maybe it shouldn’t matter. There’s something oddly comforting in those middle sections—like watching someone choose peace over truth. But underneath it, there’s always this quiet tension. The name Clara never fully goes away. The symbol, the dreams, the flashes of snow and water—they linger in the background like something waiting its turn.

And then the book shifts.

The later sections—especially once Jonas returns north—feel like a completely different layer of the same story peeling back. What I appreciated is that the payoff isn’t just “oh, here’s what happened.” It’s heavier than that. The truth isn’t just memory—it’s responsibility. When Jonas finally confronts the past at the clearing, it’s not just about remembering Clara—it’s about reliving it. The scene at the tree is one of the strongest in the book, because it collapses time completely. You’re not reading about what happened—you’re in it. The river, the attack, Clara calling his name—it all hits at once.

And Clara herself… I think this is where the book either works for you or it doesn’t. She isn’t just a lost love or a tragic figure. She becomes something more symbolic by the end—memory, guilt, unfinished truth, maybe even something tied to the land itself. When Jonas finally reunites with her—not as a memory, but as something real, something waiting—it’s less about romance and more about release. The ending leans into that almost spiritual, folklore-like tone where the valley remembers, where people become part of it. It’s not clean. It’s not overly explained. But it feels intentional.

If I had to sum up the experience, it’s a slow-burn story about choosing to forget—and what happens when the past refuses to stay buried. It’s quieter than most books in this space, but when it finally hits, it hits in a way that feels earned.

Summary:

Overall, The Long Return is a slow, atmospheric story that starts as a quiet “man rebuilding his life” narrative and gradually turns into something deeper and more haunting. The first half is grounded and almost comforting, but there’s always a subtle unease underneath. The second half pulls everything back to the past, revealing a heavier, more emotional truth that recontextualizes everything that came before. Not action-heavy, but very deliberate—best for readers who like slow reveals, emotional payoff, and a slightly eerie, almost folklore-like ending. Happy reading!

Check out The Long Return here!

 

Review: While Rome Burnz by Michael Stewart Hansen

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

In a world ravaged by a zombie virus, President Abraham Price sees not catastrophe but opportunity—a chance to expand American power and fill U.S. coffers while other nations collapse into chaos. As the infection spreads across continents and his military wages a ruthless campaign from Afghanistan to the borders of China, Price dismisses warnings from his own Cabinet about nuclear retaliation and the deteriorating situation at home. While Vice President Ariel Perez and Secretary of Homeland Security Elias Rogers desperately plead for resources to protect American citizens from the encroaching hordes, Price remains fixated on his geopolitical chess game—even as Washington D.C. itself falls to the infected. From the White House war room to a struggling gun store where ordinary Americans like John scramble to protect their families, While Rome Burnz reveals a nation torn between a leader’s megalomaniacal ambitions and the brutal reality of survival, where the greatest threat may not be the shambling dead, but the living who refuse to see the fire consuming everything around them.

Favorite Lines:

“Everyone wants to point fingers…The truth is uglier and far more terrifying.””

“She was holding them together through sheer force of will, maintaining the routines and rituals that kept them human, that reminded them they were more than just survivors scrambling through wreckage.”

“The memory was a wound that never closed.”

“He turned to face his chief directly; his expression carried a determination that came from some deep place of need and love that transcended duty or mission or survival calculations.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book drops you straight into chaos—and I mean immediately. There’s no slow build, no easing into the world. From the first few pages, you’re thrown into a full-scale collapse scenario where society doesn’t just crack… it basically implodes overnight.

What I liked most is how big this story feels. It’s not just one group of survivors trying to make it—it’s global. You’re seeing the outbreak from multiple angles: government breakdown, military operations, families trying to get out before it’s too late, and even underground broadcasts trying to make sense of it all. It almost reads like a mix between a thriller and a documentary of the end of the world.

The zombie concept itself isn’t reinvented, but the execution feels more grounded and brutal than a lot of others in the genre. The idea that everyone is already infected and only turns after death makes everything feel more inevitable—and honestly more unsettling. It’s not about avoiding infection, it’s about delaying the inevitable as long as possible. That alone adds a layer of tension that carries through the whole book.

I also appreciated how much attention is given to the human side of things. The scenes with John and his family stood out to me the most. They feel real in a way that a lot of apocalypse stories don’t always hit—worrying about bills, kids, whether to leave, what’s actually safe. It’s not just action, it’s that quiet dread of realizing your normal life is slipping away piece by piece.

That said, the pacing and writing style can feel a bit heavy at times. There’s a lot of detail—especially in the military and political sections—which makes the world feel expansive, but can also slow things down. It reads almost like you’re being briefed on the end of the world rather than just experiencing it. Some people will love that level of detail, others might find themselves skimming a bit.

This feels like the start of a much larger story. It’s less about resolution and more about setting the stage—showing just how bad things are going to get. If you like apocalyptic stories that go big and don’t hold back, this one definitely delivers.

Summary:

Overall, this is a large-scale apocalypse story that throws you straight into the collapse of the world, blending global chaos with smaller, personal survival moments. It’s heavy on detail and world-building, which makes it feel realistic and immersive, though sometimes a bit dense. It’s a strong start to a series that focuses less on action alone and more on the overwhelming scope of everything falling apart—and what that actually feels like to live through. Happy reading!

Check out While Rome Burnz here!