“Ashen Winter” by Mike Mullin~YA Fiction Super Volcano Eruption!

Where will you be when Yellowstone National Park’s super volcano erupts? It will.  It’s just a matter of when. Mike Mullin has written two very impressive YA fiction novels about the inevitable eruption in the United States’s Mid-West that cripples and virtually destroys the country. His first book in the series, “Ashfall” and this one, “Ashen Winter” tells the story of a teenaged couple who learns to survive, along with others in a world completely rewritten by the volcano’s devastation. It’s a story of humanity’s survival…of the end of Eden and the loss of innocence coupled with the struggle for sanity and hope, literally, amidst the ashes.  As always, it’s love that’s found to be the highest order of all things.
Mullin shows the evils of mankind in their most blatant…the “what ifs” at their worst. And, he shows the courage of women and men under duress, as well. Many times I found myself holding my breath, and then cheering for Darla, the stronger-than-the-men young woman, who is a genius at almost everything she puts her hand to including mechanics! Often, I clenched my teeth and shook my head in frustration at the stops and starts, the things and people that held back Alex, the teenager from whose eyes and ears we first experienced the disaster.  The characters running amok in these books are worthy of zombie-land!  The main characters, however, are salt-of-the-earth types who we can easily recognize among our friends and family.  The struggle to survive is the driving force of their lives.
This is a novel that’s not easy to read in terms of it’s plausibility. It’s not easy to “hear.” The Super Volcano eruption could happen. It might happen in our time..any day. What’s for sure is that this is a set of books that would do well to be taught in public and private high schools throughout the United States! Forewarned is to be a little better prepared. Because if it ever happens…all bets are off and it’s literally every single woman for herself.
5 stars blazing for this fabulous book!!

 

Published by:  Tanglewood Press

Author:  Mike Mullin

Pages:    594

Author’s website:  http://www.mikemullinauthor.com

Summary : 

It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Click to see video about Super Volcano in US!!

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About Mike Mullin :

Mike Mullin first discovered he could make money writing in sixth grade. His teacher, Mrs. Brannon, occasionally paid students for using unusual words. Mullin’s first sale as a writer earned ten cents for one word: tenacious. Since then, Mullin has always been involved with literature. One of his early jobs was shelving books at Central Library in Indianapolis. Later, he paid his way through graduate school in part by serving as a reference assistant. He has worked in his mother’s business, Kids Ink Children’s Bookstore, for more than twenty years, serving at various times as a store manager, buyer, school and library salesperson, and marketing consultant. Mullin wrote his first novel in elementary school — Captain Poopy’s Sewer Adventures. He’s been writing more or less nonstop ever since, but fortunately for his readers, Ashfall will be his first published novel. Mullin holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. Visit http://www.mikemullinauthor.com for more info about the author and Ashfall and its sequel, Ashen Winter.