X-Men meets The Walking Dead in Lindsey Pogue’s superpowered survival story, fraught with Crazies, compelling characters, and bursting with raw emotion you can feel deep in your bones.The Virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. A group of orphaned misfits.The wildlands of the last frontier.Superhuman abilities, harrowing adventures, and heartbreaking secrets.Elle – Haunting shadows are … heartbreaking secrets.
Elle – Haunting shadows are nothing new to Elle St. James, she’s been running from them all her life. But since the outbreak spread from the lower forty-eight, new monsters lurk in the darkness. After Elle wakes from the fever, capable of horrific deeds, she fears she’s one of them. When she stumbles upon four orphans, Elle’s forced to discover what happens when her greatest fear becomes her darkest secret and her only hope of surviving.
Jackson – After the world goes mad and takes his family with it, Jackson Mitchell tosses aside his badge and decides a bottle of bourbon and the depths of despair are preferable to any semblance of living. All of that changes, however, when a group of young survivors are in dire need of his help and Jackson sacrifices his blissful oblivion in order to keep them safe. As they trek further away from the collapsing cities, Jackson must rely on his knowledge of the backcountry and the traditions of his people, or succumb to the dangers of the Alaskan wilderness.
Brought together under the worst possible circumstances, Elle and Jackson must face the inexplicable realities of the new world. Their past lives are over, and the arctic isn’t all that’s savage anymore.
From the author of the bestselling, post-apocalyptic world of The Ending Series, comes a new standalone series of epic adventure set in the virus-ravaged world of The Ending. The Savage North Chronicles contain new characters, locations, and adventures — they can be enjoyed on their own or in conjunction with The Ending Series novels.
The Savage North Chronicles (An Ending World series)
The Darkest Winter, book one
The Longest Night, prequel novella
Midnight Sun, book two
The Ending Series
After The Ending, book one in The Ending Series
Into The Fire, book two
Out Of The Ashes, book three
Before The Dawn, book four
World Before
Beginnings: Ending Series Origin Stories
more
An electric survival tale with a great scifi twist!
LP’s Lindsey Pogue latest installment in The Ending World is a must-read for all Ending Series fans!
The Darkest Winter: Savage North Chronicles Book 1 by Lindsey Pogue
I liked it, profanity was at a very low minimum. I would feel comfortable letting my teen son read it. I highly recommend it if you like post-apocalyptical fiction. I read straight through. It’s quite long, I didn’t even notice!
Lindsey Pogue is an author to follow, as far as I’m concerned.
A great spin on apocalyptic survival.
Fans who love Sarah Lyons Fleming’s zompoc stories will be sucked into frigid Alaska with Lindsey Pogue after a pandemic sweeps the world, killing 90% of the population almost overnight.
Pogue’s complex characters, complicated relationships, and survival instinct made this post-apoc novel a pleasure to read.
Loved this book! This is such an interesting world Lindsey created. I can’t wait to read the next books in this series
I have read the entire Ending Series that takes place in another part of the country but resulted from the same flu epidemic so I love this post-apocalyptic world. We are introduced to Alex, Sophie and the two kids in the prequel, The Longest Night, and now Elle and Jackson.
Elle is just trying to survive after discovering her twin didn’t make it through the flu and takes on a maternal role for the four orphans she encountered when trying to get to her sister. As they are making their way to what they hope is a safe place, they come across Jackson who unwillingly takes on a paternal role with a definite time limit in his mind. He’s a cop who has suffered unimaginable loss and just wants to escape into a bottle to blunt his pain in this new world. He certainly hadn’t planned on caring for this group that has become his family.
There isn’t any romance in this book until close to the end. It’s all about survival and reaching a safe place they hope they can finally start building a new life. Plus most of them are slowly realizing they have new abilities as the story unfolds and trying to manage them and understand what it means to their futures.
I’m really looking forward to the next story in this world, Midnight Sun.
I read Ms. Pogue’s series After the Ending and this book is in the same universe, although you don’t have to read the other series to enjoy this (you should though – it’s awesome!). The story starts a little slow which can be frustrating, but it becomes so worth it. The world-building is supurb and the characters are real, flawed human beings doing all they can to just survive and do the right thing when fate allows it. I really enjoyed this read and recommend it to anyone who likes apocalyptic fantasy with a bit of clean romance thrown in. It’s good for 14 years and up, but only because you’re dealing with life and death choices and matters.
Intense, Raw Emotions
Ms Pogue takes us on a ride down the road of our worst nightmare. What happens when you lose the thing that is most cherished? You start your day walking on water, and then the ice breaks and you are dropped into the cold icy waters of hell.
That’s how this book starts out, but I did not want to put it down. Every day we hear about how close we are to suffering a world ending pandemic. Ebola, Flu, old diseases thought eradicated, skin eating bacteria, super bugs without names. How will these diseases affect us or change us. How will we evolve on a planet that cares not for us but for its own survival? Would you survive or would you go crazy? Read Darkest Winter and get a taste of what might be in store for you.
The end of the world is here will you survive the virus? The Darkest Winter is set in the same world as Lindsey Pogue and Lindsey Fairleigh’s After The Ending series but does not need to be read after these books, it can be read as a standalone.
Adults Elle and Jackson, teenagers Sophie and Alex, and young siblings Beau and Thea are all strangers to each other but become a family after surviving a virus that virtually wipes out 90 percent of the human population leaving civilization in shambles. The survivors struggle to live in the extremely cold and inhospitable environment of winter in Alaska as the old world has died violently… and the new world that replaced it is incredibly dangerous with animal predators and human predators; those who have gone insane from the virus and are hunting survivors!
The Darkest Winter: An Ending World Novel, is book one in the Savage North Chronicles by Lindsey Pogue. This is a spin off series from Lindsey’s previous The Ending Series. You do NOT have to have read The Ending series to enjoy this book. Not in the least. But I have read it. I was obsessively in love with it while I was reading it so it made me that much more excited about this book and going back to that world. And wow, was it worth the wait. Every single page of it!
Eleanor (Elle) St. James lives a solitary and somewhat transient life working aboard a cruise ship, only returning to Alaska between cruises. She has a twin sister who lives a few towns away in Alaska. Elle has gotten word that her step father has died and she was named in the will. Her presence is needed to take care of matters.
Jackson Mitchell is a cop in Alaska. His wife is eight months pregnant. Both Jackson and Elle have a darkness in their pasts that haunts them in different ways. They have not yet met, but both of their lives are about to change in a way that will test both of them in every way possible.
A virus has been sweeping the nation and has now found its way up to Alaska. It initially was thought to be a flu virus of some sort but it’s soon evident that this is not the flu. Everyone is dying. Only a few seem to survive. And of those few, some come out the other side insane. Of those few that managed to survive with their minds intact, they soon realize that they possess an ability, a power, different for everyone.
Both Jackson and Elle have lost their families. When Elle travels to try to find her twin sister, what she finds instead are a group of orphaned children, two siblings, Beau, nine, and Thea, six. Also, seventeen year old Alex and eighteen year old Sophie. At this point, none of them understand what is happening. Only that they are alive, alone and scared. Elle takes them with her as they try to find somewhere safe to go while they figure things out.
Jackson happens upon the group when they need him most and agrees to accompany them until their paths separate. Jackson is dealing with his grief in his own way but a funny thing happens over time when you put this group of people together in such desperate times. They begin to care for one another. They begin to form a bond, and become a family of sorts.
This group of six is in constant danger from both the elements of an Alaskan winter and from the crazies in this post apocalyptic world. At the same time, they are each discovering that they are capable of something they don’t understand. Is it a gift or a curse? Why are they suddenly able to do these things?
Wow, what a crazy wild ride. I loved every page of this. This is not a cliff hanger, mostly. This is told alternating in both Elle and Jackson’s point of views. This summer, a novella, The Longest Night, will be released which will be the origin stories of Alex and Sophie. Then this Fall, Midnight Sun will be released which will be Alex and Sophie’s story in the present as they and the rest of the group fight for survival and answers.
I love everything about these characters and this world. I would classify this as YA/NA. There isn’t any romance in this book until close to the end. Coming from me, a romance junkie, it’s pretty shocking that I loved it so much since I normally don’t even pay attention to a book unless it is romance. But believe me when I say you won’t even have time to think about it. Plus the fact that the connection between Elle and Jackson was enough to keep me hooked. If this is a trope you enjoy, I hope I have convinced you to give this a try. And that you love it as much as I did.
The Darkest Winter: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Adventure (Savage North Chronicles Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Lindsey Pogue (Author)
Another in the long line of Dystopian novels that seem to have been generated in the years between 2012 and now. This time, the virus wipes out most of humanity, leaving the survivors something extra. The single breakout idea was setting the story in the wilds of Alaska and using Indigenous culture to fill in blanks.
The book misses the good vs. evil, final conflict that Stephen King’s The Stand and Robert B McCammon’s Swan Song. Pogue, the author, doesn’t ingrain the story or the characters with the hearts and souls of the Hunger Games series.
Our cast of characters are drawn from all walks of life, young children, a law enforcement officer, teenagers and damaged adult trying to come to terms with her past. The last character, Elle, is the most interesting. Her story is teased but we never get a payoff in terms of what happened to her at the hands of Dr. John.
The storytelling and narration duties pass, at first, between Elle (our broken heroine) and Jackson (the broken hero) and eventually to Sophie. Unfortunately, the first person voices are not unique enough to identify the character without a name at the beginning of a chapter. If for some reason the reader takes a break, mid-chapter, she will probably need to start that chapter over.
The various wood craft and survival level lesson taught through an Indigenous woman and her family are probably the most interesting piece. Yet, the information is thin compared to the length of time and pages spent on it.
The writing itself isn’t bad. Pogue manages to inject genuine terror of being alone in a world that was once so filled with people. Pogue also has some nebulous bad guys who tend to either breeze in to die or are just out of camera. It is almost as if she isn’t prepared to go all the way, as Meg Ellison did in her The Book of the Unnamed Midwife with what people will do when they think there are no consequences.
The plot consists of hurry and run then stop to prepare. Rinse and repeat.
2 ½ stars rounded up to 3
https://www.amazon.com/Darkest-Winter-Ending-Savage-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B07Q1WZJ57
An excellent read! I really enjoyed this well written, exciting end of the world fantasy novel! Great story, good characters, interesting ideas! I will look for more by this writer & I do strongly recommend!