STORM

In series opener Sylo (2013), war came to Tucker Pierce on Pemberwick Island off the coast of Maine; this middle volume picks up where the first left off.

Tucker and his friends Tori, Kent and Olivia escaped from Pemberwick Island and the air-and-sea battle that raged around it to land in Portland. But it’s not the historic old harbor town they remember. No one is on the streets, and while most buildings remain, some have completely disintegrated. It’s clear that the battle they witnessed wasn’t just for possession of their home island—it was for the entire area. But they still don’t know exactly who is fighting whom, or why, or how far the battlefield extends. Taking refuge in a hospital, the teens find a few other survivors but not a lot of additional information. A looping radio transmission encourages survivors to go west, where a force is gathering to fight back. Division threatens, as the teens argue about what to do: join this resistance or find refuge. Tucker just wants some payback for the death of his best friend in the previous book. Tucker’s search for the moral right leads to the concept of the “lesser evil” in ways he could never have anticipated and keeps readers completely involved every step of the way. Reminiscent of Stephen King’s masterwork The Stand, this book’s pace never slackens.

There is no middle-volume sag in this pulse-pounding thriller