Where the Dawn Finds Us is the third and final book in author Kate Hewitt’s Lost Lake series. I didn’t read the first book, but picked up the series with the second book. As post-apocalyptic series go, it’s not bad, but there are parts I had a hard time believing. Not everything that happens in Where the Dawn Finds Us seems to line up with where Hewitt left the series at the end of The Midnight Hour, and there are a number of scenarios I found hard to believe and was not able to suspend my disbelief.

After a nuclear war leaves the cities devastated and unable to be lived in, the survivors in more remote areas of the world are beginning to gather together and form communities. At the end of The Midnight Hour, Alex Walker left the community of Red Cedar Lake in northern Ontario, where she had been living with her family. Her husband had just died from radiation poisoning, and Alex was left alone with their three children, plus Phoebe, a young child who lost her parents during the aftermath of the nuclear war. There was information about the government of the United States trying to establish the country once again in a settlement in Watford, North Dakota. Her older daughter, Mattie, chooses to stay behind at Red Cedar Lake. Although she’s only sixteen, she believes she is old enough to decide for herself.

Neither Alex nor Mattie realizes the consequences of the decisions they’ve made. Once her family is gone from Red Cedar Lake, Mattie doesn’t feel like the confident adult she was pretending to be when she told her mother she wanted to stay behind. There seemed to be a blossoming relationship between her and Kyle, another survivor they met along the way. Now, she’s not so sure about her feelings for him. When they are pressured to move in together due to space considerations, Mattie balks. Vicky, who has been the leader of the Red Cedar Lake community, seems to have fallen for a survivalist named Wade. When Wade joins the community, Mattie is very uncomfortable with the changes in the community as well as Wade.

Meanwhile, in Watford, Alex arrives with Sam and Ruby, her two other children. She’s not comfortable with how things are done there, but goes along with it because she doesn’t have a choice. There are questions about who is actually in charge and running things. Alex meets Jack, the man in charge of the Watford community. There is some attraction between them, but Alex only lost her husband a month before, even if there were problems in their marriage.

The story in Where the Dawn Finds Us is about one family struggling to find their place in this post-apocalyptic future. More than once, it’s mentioned how fortunate they are that the nuclear winter never happened. That’s a convenient plot point, because even if it didn’t happen as drastically as blotting out the sun for years and years, there would most assuredly have been a cooling of the planet, and places like North Dakota and Ontario would suffer. That’s the first bit of disbelief we’re expected to buy.

The second is the relationship between Alex and Jack. Jack has his own baggage, and they seem to be attracted to her. However, he helps her get a cushy job. It’s estimated that 95% of the population died in the nuclear holocaust and its aftermath, which means that there are around 15 million people still alive in the United States. Despite thousands of people pouring into Watford, Jack gives Alex special treatment to use the radio to talk to Mattie. Alex is also troubled by questions that plague her, such as what it means for the government to “reclaim land” and what happened to the people who once lived in the house she and her family now occupy. The book doesn’t really provide all of the answers, even if this is the final book of the series.

I found both of the main characters to be annoying. Alex is so whiny about wanting to talk to her daughter. This is a different world, where you can’t just pick up a phone and talk to someone any time you want. It’s more like a time before the telephone when people moved away, and you didn’t necessarily hear from them again. She was at her best when trying to decide just how much she wants to know about what the government is doing. Mattie seems to immediately regret her decision to stay in Red Cedar Lake. She is transformed from a confident near-adult at the end of The Midnight Hour to someone who wants something entirely different. Vicky also seems to completely change her personality from the person we were introduced to in the previous book. She goes from being a competent and compassionate leader to a damsel in distress waiting for someone to come and protect her. That person is Wade. He was probably the most realistic, as he comes off as a typical prepper who thinks he knows everything, when all he seems to know is how to instill fear in those around him.

I wish I liked Where the Dawn Finds Us more. I found the ending particularly unrealistic for a world where there are no more supermarkets or easy ways to get food, heat, and shelter. I enjoyed Hewitt’s historical fiction series so much, but the other series I’ve read since then have let me down.

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

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