FOR THREE DAYS, IT WAS DARK.

News reporters scrambled. This was the biggest story to come along in weeks.

They called it a blackout.

The last one was in New York City in 2003, but this one was different, special, because the grids in six major cities across the country had been fried, kaput, see-you-next-Sunday. Everyone with some jurisdiction blamed each other, and when there was no one left to blame, terrorism rode in on its gallant steed.

It was the media’s fault. They were so busy stuffing fanatical Muslims with a penchant for Allah and decapitations down the American citizen’s throat, that they never saw it coming. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on them.

They were partially right.

It was terror after all, but a whole new kind. And when the lights came back on, things had changed.

The dark had brought us visitors.

Carrie’s Review

From start to finish I was sucked into this book. The beginning intrigued me, had me asking questions and wanting more. And at the end I wandered if I would see Emma again. Emma is a strong character. She is intelligent and learns quickly but she’s not perfect. The other characters were easy to follow and relate to as well. The story was well laid out and hard to put down. A must read!

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On a Friday afternoon before Labor Day, Americans are getting ready for the holiday weekend, completely unaware of a long-planned terrorist plot about to be launched against the country. Kyle Tait is settling in for his flight home to Montana when a single nuclear bomb is detonated 300 miles above the heart of America. The blast, an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP), destroys every electrical device in the country, and results in the crippling of the power grid, the shutting down of modern communications, and bringing to a halt most forms of transportation.

Kyle narrowly escapes when his airplane crashes on take-off, only to find himself stranded 2,000 miles from home in a country that has been forced, from a technological standpoint, back to the 19th Century. Confused, hurt, scared, and alone, Kyle must make his way across a hostile continent to a family he’s not even sure has survived the effects of the attack. As Kyle forges his way home, his frightened family faces their own struggles for survival in a community trying to halt its slow spiral into chaos and anarchy.

77 Days in September follows Kyle and his wife, Jennifer, as they are stretched past their breaking point, but find in their devotion to each other the strength to persevere.

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My Thoughts: 

Have you seen the movie on the National Geographic channel called Doomsday Preppers? My husband and I love watching that show. It’s like a car wreck; disturbing but you just can’t take your eyes off of it. People, convinced that some cataclysm or disaster is going to bring our nation to its knees, be it a super volcano, nuclear holocaust, collapse of our government, failure of the power grid, you name it and someone is afraid of it. People hoard years worth of food, medicine and supplies, retrofit their homes into self-sufficient compounds or bunkers and practice drills of hypothetical dystopian situations.

It’s fascinating. It also gives me nightmares. Somewhere, deep down in my psyche is a niggling worry that one of these far-fetched disasters could very well happen and then where would we be? 77 Days in September is a fictional story, based on a scientific end-of-days possibility of a centered EMP or electro-magnetic pulse that wipes out the electronics in all of North America and brings society to a crashing halt. The book is centered on Kyle Tait and his family, separated by 2,000 miles as Kyle struggles to walk home from Houston, Texas to Deer Creek, Montana.

Gorham puts you in the minds of people fighting for survival and doing anything they can to keep themselves and families warm and fed, sometimes doing things morally abhorrent but necessary. Gorham’s characters are complex, believeable as is the story. It’s not some crazy sci-fi horror but a situation that has people right now stocking up on canned goods and learning survival techniques in case the proverbial Sh*& hits the fan. This is a great summer read and I highly reccommend it. It’s compelling and sucks you in from the beginning and, when you finish, you’ll wonder what you’d do if put in the same situation. I think I might hit costco, buy a horse or maybe invest in an emergency seed kit, just in case.