Book Review – Day After Disaster by Sara F. Hathaway

While book reviews have slowed down a bit so that I may focus on some personal reading, I get requests every now and then to give opinions on new titles. I am always happy to help out new authors as well as established ones. This time, Sara F. Hathaway reached out to me to review her first in The Changing Earth Series called Day After Disaster.

I have nothing against women being the main character of a survival type book, but I will say that is something you do not find very often. It was a welcomed change.

It all starts with the main character Erika at her job and then basically, everything goes south. Mother Nature throws her a curve ball and it is literally “the end of the world as we know it”. While battling earthquakes and floods, among other things, Erika longs to get back to her husband and son and the story adds many twists and turns as she attempts to make it to them.

The characters are well built and thankfully not all up front, meaning we learn more about Erika as we go along in the story. We discover her identity with each test and trial she faces. As an example, and maybe a spoiler, we learn as she meets unsavory characters, she knows martial arts. While this doesn’t get her out of every situation, it does add to the benefit of her character and hint at her being a “bad-ass”.

With each person Erika meets, Hathaway has provided good background and development of the characters in story form as opposed to labeling them. For instance, labeling a character as a “former special forces operator” leads the reader to a preconceived ideal and leaves little to the imagination.

Except for one paragraph in the book, the story is very clean. I do not recall any foul language and if there is any, it was not obtrusive or offensive and it certainly did not deter the reader from the story.

One more promotion for the book is the ending. NOT A SPOILER: Reading a book in a series that does not lead to the next book makes it difficult to purchase a second one. Sara Hathaway did not have this problem as she led us straight to the desired point of reading the second book. There is plenty of storyline left for more than just one more book.

My overall thoughts are, I would like to see deeper skills being used in the second book. There were tactics and skills in Day After Disaster but for my taste, I would like them expanded or for the author to go more in depth on some of them.

Just the facts:

• 344 pages
• $9.99 on Kindle (on sale for $8.99 as of this writing) on Amazon
• $24.99 paperback (on sale for $20.59 as of this writing) on Amazon

All in all, I like the book. The story and the characters are built well and the action fits in line with my taste. In short, this is another one I can say, buy the book.

Until then,

Use your instincts to survive