I was really excited about this book. I’m a big post-apocalyptic fan and they seem to be few and far between in lesfic. But I’m also an animal lover, and when I heard about some of the violent scenes, I started to worry. It came to a point instead of rushing to read this, I kept putting it off. After some advice from a friend who had read this already, I finally felt okay with reading it. I’m so glad I did because I flat out loved this book.

I do want to give a warning first, yes, this book is violent. After war has ravaged the world, predator animals are back on the top of the food chain. Not only are animals a worry, but humans are too in this extremely dangerous new world. Due to the violence, this probably won’t be a book for everyone, but if you can handle it I highly recommend reading this.

I’m not going to go into a summary; there are a lot of reviews already if you need one. I do want to mention there are two main characters Lynn and Dani. This book is in third person, but we are only ever in Lynn’s headspace. I actually thought it was an interesting choice for a book like this, but it really worked. Lynn is a fantastic main character. She was one of those strong badass female characters I just love. Dani has her flaws and the author is not always that nice to her, but I loved learning about her as Lynn did. Even not being in her headspace, you still felt like you really understood Dani.

There is a romance. For this being an adventure book that keeps you on your toes with danger at every corner, the romance really worked for me. It progressed at a nice slow pace as these characters slowly learned to depend on each other. I loved the dialogue when the characters would discuss their feelings. The one main sex scene was so well done. It wasn’t steamy but it felt like a love scene not just sex. There was so much emotion behind it, it actually blew me away a bit. I think it would actually go into my top ten favorite intimate scenes in lesfic. I usually reserve them for super steamy scenes, but this was just so well written I won’t forget it anytime soon.

There are a few tiny negatives. There were a few times that I had to suspend disbelief a bit. Or I thought the time period didn’t match up perfectly with what the characters knew. This take place (if I remember correctly) 200 years after the war that really ended civilization as we know it. I think if Dawney would have cut that time in half, everything would have lined up so much better. But in the grand scheme of things, these complaints were so tiny they didn’t affect my love for the book at all.

The book is long, but in a good way. The pace of the book hardly even slowed down enough for me to catch my breath. I soon found myself staring at my Kindle’s percentage complete, wishing it would slow down. But it ended and I was left knowing this book would stay with me for a long time. It ended and I knew I was going to write one of my rarer full five star reviews. When a book is this damn good, it’s hard to do it justice in a review. If you are a post-apocalyptic fan, an adventure/action fan, I absolutely recommend this. I can’t wait to see what Dawney puts out next.

An ARC was given to me by YLVA, for a honest review.