The 4th book in the Gideon series is best yet. In fact, each seems better than the last.

This thriller reminded me of the film Alien. It could be categorized science fiction.

1. Gideon’s Sword
2. Gideon’s Corpse
3. The Lost Island
4. Beyond the Ice Limit
5. The Pharaoh Key

[Warning: BEYOND THE ICE LIMIT is the sequel to THE ICE LIMIT.

While BEYOND is a stand-alone novel, we want to warn potential readers that the copy below contains serious spoilers for THE ICE LIMIT, for those who wish to read that book first.]

That thing is growing again. We must destroy it. The time to act is now …

With these words begins Gideon Crew’s latest, most dangerous, most high-stakes assignment yet. Failure will mean nothing short of the end of humankind on earth.

Five years ago, the mysterious and inscrutable head of Effective Engineering Solutions, Eli Glinn, led a mission to recover a gigantic meteorite–the largest ever discovered–from a remote island off the coast of South America.

The mission ended in disaster when their ship, the Rolvaag, foundered in a vicious storm in the Antarctic Sea and broke apart, sinking—along with its unique cargo—to the ocean floor. One hundred and eight crew members perished, and Eli Glinn was left paralyzed.

But this was not all. The tragedy revealed something truly terrifying: the meteorite they tried to retrieve was not, in fact, simply a rock. Instead, it was a complex organism from the deep reaches of space.

Now, that organism has implanted itself in the sea bed two miles below the surface—and it is growing. If it is not destroyed, the planet will be doomed.

There is only one hope: for Glinn and his team to annihilate it, a task which requires Gideon’s expertise with nuclear weapons. But as Gideon and his colleagues soon discover, the “meteorite” has a mind of its own—and it has no intention of going quietly…

PrestonChild.com

The Women (2024) by Kristin Hannah is one of the most popular books of 2024.

Intense.

I’d forgotten just how IDIOTIC was the Vietnam War.

The tragedy that befalls Frankie is multilayered, though all of it can be traced back to the moment she impulsively volunteers to be an Army nurse in Vietnam.

Before she knows what’s happened, she’s 2nd Lt. Frances McGrath, arriving at a 400-bed hospital 60 miles from Saigon.

… Frankie has no understanding of what horrors await her.

Her first full day in-country, after helicopters swoop in carrying dozens of gravely injured men, a medic hands her a boot and, when Frankie realizes a foot is still inside, she vomits and then tells anyone who will listen that she’s made a huge mistake.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she gasps.

Washington Post review (subscription)

Kristin Hannah is a story teller of the highest level — something like Nora Roberts.

They both started as Romance novelists, but Hannah is most famous now for her historical fiction.

On the other hand — the first half of the book I enjoyed a lot. Edutainment.

The second half is more of a bland Romance. I quickly grew sick of Frankie’s problems. And finally jumped ahead to the last chapter.

Kristin Hanna lives on Bainbridge Island, WA.

Author Kyla Stone specializes in apocalyptic and dystopian fiction.

I’d call this series Young Adult — though there are some painful scenes. I fast forwarded some.

It’s a bit cheesy and predictable, too.

The author seems too enamoured of firearms and gun fights.

The story starts with a shocker.

In the dead of winter in Michigan, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack destroys the U.S. power grid.
No electricity. No cars or phones. The country is plunged into instant chaos.

But for Hannah Sheridan, it’s the best day of her life. For the last five years, she’s been the captive of a sadistic psychopath–until the EMP releases the lock of her prison.

Battered but not broken, she emerges from her underground cell into a hostile winter wilderness with nothing but the clothes on her back and her determination to survive.

Book 1 does have one of the better trailers I’ve seen so far.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Edge of Collapse: Box Set Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

This box set contains the first 3 books and a short prequel:
Chaos Rising
Edge of Collapse
Edge of Madness
Edge of Darkness

Good marketing. You can download the box set from a library for free. BUT need to pay for subsequent novels in the series.

Surprisingly, you can listen to most of the books FREE online on Kyla’s YouTube channel.