As Nature tires of human destruction, two sisters must face a changing environment that stands between them and survival. When Quinn and Riley set out on a family vacation with their parents, the trip ends before it begins. Mother Nature interferes with their plans, setting off a sequence of events that thrusts the teens into a hostile landscape. Stranded, with limited supplies, struggling to … figure out who they can trust along the way, they must determine how to survive Nature’s evolving fury.
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Two sisters Quinn and Riley along with their parents set out on vacation. Their Aunt Grace has a trailer near the beach in Delaware that they visit every year. They end up in a terrible accident close to Aunt Grace’s. Their parents don’t survive. Quinn and Riley make their way to their aunt’s place not knowing what else to do.
It looks like Mother Nature has had enough of the way people are treating her home and decides that is it time for a little payback. The earth is hit with earthquakes, tornados, storms it is one disaster after another taking a lot of lives.
During the night Quinn hears someone messing around outside and goes to investigate. When she gets outside she sees this guy Aidan that she met on her run earlier in the day. She asks him what he is doing messing around in the middle of the night. Aidan tells her he is just borrowing stuff from people who don’t need it anymore.
Quinn and Riley find out that Aidan and his friend Jeff are from the same place they are from and plan on trying to make it home. Quinn and Riley pack their bags and head out with them. When they awake the next day Riley is missing. Quinn knows that Riley just didn’t take off without her. She knows that Riley would never leave her behind. Something had to happen to her. Someone must have come into the camp the night before and took her.
Aidan and Jeff go back with Quinn to the trailer park to help her look for Riley they meet a boy, Chris who tells him that he overheard a couple of guys talking about her sister and where they were going. Aidan and Jeff go with Quinn to help her find her sister.
There are dangers and a lot of obstacles standing in their way but this one tough bunch of kids. Quinn will face down whatever is in her way because she is not going to let anyone or anything stand in her way of finding her sister. Mother Nature throws a few more things their way not to mention the evil humans they run into.
Darkness Falls is a very intense read that kept my attention from the first page. It started out with action in the beginning and never let up. There were so many twists and turns that it was hard to keep up with them. I did think at times that Quinn took some unnecessary risk. She did some great things but sometimes she did some crazy things that were unsafe for a seventeen-year-old who was all alone at the time. I would love to read more of Nature’s Fury series. What more can these two sisters go through? What more can Mother Nature throw at the people? Very exciting for a read, not real life.
I would definitely recommend Darkness Falls to all fans of post-apocalyptic. Dystopia.
3.5 Cranky Stars
“Why do I always have to be such as ass and expect the worst from people?” Because in the world of post-apocalyptic fiction, the worst is usually what you find, Quinn!
I enjoy reading YA Dystopian fiction, so I jumped at the chance to read this book through the Cranky Review Team. I have to say that I was slightly disappointed. Maybe I have just read too many books in the genre to enjoy this one as much as other readers.
First of all, the blurb makes this book sound like a story set in a dystopian atmosphere about two sisters who have to navigate the changing environment brought on by Mother Nature plunging the world into chaos through unusual weather events. It makes it sound like Mother Nature is mad and going to take back the planet by eliminating the human population.
In my opinion, the story focused more on the sisters and the parts about Mother Nature were just background to the book. I would consider it an apocalyptic book, not a dystopian one. Yes, you have a freakish earthquake, tornadoes, some huge storms and the mention of a possible volcanic eruption, but it wasn’t what I expected from the blurb.
My review does contain spoilers, so you might want to quit reading here.
Riley and Quinn are going with their parents on their annual vacation to their Aunt’s trailer in Delaware when a freak earthquake causes a massive pile up on the highway. Their parents are killed, so the sisters walk to their intended destination. Miraculously, the power and water are still working, so things aren’t so bad. This was my first twinge of warning about the storyline.
The two brothers next door, Dan and Jim, are still in the area and Jim especially is still creeping out Quinn. She doesn’t trust him, but they can’t hide away forever. But, even though she doesn’t trust these two after knowing them for years, she immediately trusts a stranger she finds lurking in the area. Aiden and his friends have wandered into the area after the earthquake and Quinn and Riley hit it off with them.
However, Aiden says that he has found a woman in one of the trailers who has been stabbed to death. He and Quinn go to check it out, then leave. Huh? At this point, the book started to feel like a B-horror movie in a lot of ways. This group decides to steal Jim and Dan’s dirt bikes and try to make it back home. My question is: Where is home? The girls’ parents are dead, so what are they going back to in Pennsylvania?
Jim and Dan figure out who has stolen the bikes, so they take them back, along with kidnapping Riley since Jim has been in love with her for a long time. Of course, Quinn has to find her sister, so she talks Aiden and crew to help her in her quest.
The rest of the book is basically the story of Quinn and crew travelling toward the safety (?) of a military base since this is where she thinks Riley has been taken. There is plenty of trouble along the way and encounters with unsavory types, as well as death and injury among the group. At the end, the two sisters are reunited, but I am sure that their adventure hasn’t ended. “Home isn’t 300 miles away in a boxy brick structure. Not anymore. Home is my sister.”
I will probably continue to read this series, but I hope that the author figures out what she is really wanting to write. It felt like she had several stories in her head and tried to put them all together in this one book. Then again, maybe I was just waiting for the zombies to show up!