Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Storm Publishing, and author Kate Hewitt for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I’ve read several of Kate Hewitt’s books, which mostly seem to be historical fiction. In the case of The Midnight Hour, it’s the second book in a series about a future that doesn’t seem all that impossible at the current time. While I didn’t know all of the details from the first book, I do think I would have enjoyed reading it, and it would have made some things in The Midnight Hour easier to understand.

The Midnight Hour picks up immediately after some horrible events that ended the first book. Alex and her husband, Daniel, have survived a nuclear holocaust with their family by staying at a remote cabin in Ontario that her parents owned. Roving gangs found them there, and after a fight, they went running for their lives. Worried about exposure to radiation, they are trying to make it to a rumored military base near Buffalo. While traveling, they come across two armed men in a monster truck blocking the road. They kill the men and take the truck.

While camping in a secluded section of a provincial park, they meet up with another family who is headed towards a colony they heard of at an abandoned military base north of where they are. With few other options, they decide to try it out as well.

Both Alex and Daniel are trying to resolve the trauma they feel due to all they have been through. The marriage had been fractured due to Daniel’s lies, but at this point, they need each other to survive. Alex feels guilty for killing the two men as they discover they likely weren’t part of the roving gangs but more likely trying to help people. It’s a brutal world out there, and she did what she thought she needed to do. Her oldest son, Sam, seems disgusted that his mother killed a man in cold blood. Their relationship seems fractured as well.

The book also flashes back to Daniel’s trip to bring their son back from college, which lasted several months. There are events from then that he is still trying to cope with as well. He hasn’t told anyone what happened and will take the secret to the grave.

Living in a post-nuclear world has been romanticized in some ways, thanks to films like Mad Max. Some people have grown to believe that it would be “fun” to lead that sort of existence. They see themselves as heroes just waiting for a disaster to happen to elevate them to greatness. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details. The Midnight Hour helps show what surviving in this post-apocalyptic world is really like. It’s not all fun and games, nor is it easy just to survive. Doing the right thing can get you killed, but if everyone stopped doing it, humans would eventually die off, just killing each other in the aftermath.

I had a hard time liking Alex. Maybe that’s how the author wanted it. She has good reasons to struggle in her relationship with Daniel, and maybe some of that is what’s leaving her restless in the world. The North Bay Survival and Resettlement Center, where they end up, is safe after everything they’ve dealt with. Are there problems there? Of course, but there’s also a sense of security. There were times the family was close to starving, and here they are provided with shelter, safety, food, and a society. Nothing is holding them there if they want to leave, and despite all of this, Alex is questioning whether they should stay there for the winter. The winter. In Canada. After a nuclear holocaust. I wanted to smack her. This is a time when just surviving is an accomplishment, and yet she seems to be dreaming of “finding herself” and “being a part of something bigger.” Sometimes, when you’re a parent and responsible for others, you have to suck it up and this would be one of those times.

Will there be a third book? It seems like there could be, although some things seem to be resolved at the end of The Midnight Hour. This post-nuclear world has many possibilities, and I feel like Hewitt created a very interesting setting that would allow society to redevelop. I would have preferred to have read the first book in the series, The Last Stars in the Sky, before reading this, so if that’s an option and you’re interested, I suggest you take it. The series definitely seems worth the time to read it.