Aurora by David Koepp

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.

Then the lights go out--not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.

Across the country lives Aubrey's estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.

But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings--which not everyone will survive . . .

Aurora is suspenseful storytelling--both large scale and small--at its finest.

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I love an apocalyptic novel. I've read plenty, featuring various kinds of apocalypse, and this is certainly - one of them.

This is a very small apocalypse. By that I mean that although the apocalypse is global, our focus is squarely on two characters and their communities. A side character does a small amount of traveling early on, and one character has a radio, but we hear almost nothing about anything that's happening elsewhere in the world. It's also remarkably peaceful, with one exception. Character and their community are frowing a blooming, overflowing farm with all kinds of crops at a time when food supplies all around are dwindling - and there's no attacks? Just a couple of sneak thefts in the night? No one rides in and says 'this is all mine, you work for me now, here's a bunch of guys with guns to make sure of it' ? For that matter, months into the apocalypse, people are still using money?

None of this necessarily makes it a bad story. I read it in one go because I wanted to know what happened. It's just not what I expected in this kind of novel - and that after the blurb was wrong in one small detail as well, which surprised me. However, I see that the blurb above is not the same as the blurb on my proof and doesn't include the wrong information, so presumably someone caught it.

I see that this book has already been picked up for a movie adaptation - Koepp is an accomplished screenwriter, so that doesn't surprise me - and I will definitely watch it to see how it comes out on screen. I enjoyed the read and I'll look out for more by him. It was just - not quite what I was expecting.

Aurora publishes on the 7th of June, 2022, in both the US and UK, using the same cover as far as I can tell. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.