The exciting saga of Major Caden Westmore continues with A Time to Endure, released on December 12, 2014.
In the first book Through Many Fires: Strengthen What Remains, nuclear terrorism destroys six American cities. Caden struggles to get home across a stricken, terrified nation.
In the second book, A Time to Endure, the nation’s economy teeters on the verge of collapse. The dollar plunges, inflation runs rampant, and the next civil war threatens to decimate the wounded country. In the face of tyranny, panic, and growing hunger, Caden struggles to keep his family and town together. But how can he save his community when the nation is collapsing around it?
Kyle Pratt is the award-winning and bestselling author of post-apocalyptic, science fiction and speculative fiction novels, novellas and short stories.
His most recent post-apocalyptic thriller is the Amazon bestseller, Through the Storm. His first venture in the post-apocalyptic genre was with the similarly named Through Many Fires novel. This first book in the Strengthen What Remains series came out in paperback, Kindle, and on Audible in August 2013. Within two weeks the novel appeared on the Kindle Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic list, reaching #10, and reached #1 on the list on December 2, 2014. The second book in the series, A Time to Endure, reached the number one position on the Amazon Kindle war fiction genre list just over a month after release and then again in January of 2016. At the same time Braving the Storms reached the number eight spot.
While serving on ships in the United States Navy, Kyle wrote short stories to pass the time. After retiring from the service he continued to hone his craft and in July of 2012 released his debut novel, Titan Encounter, a science fiction space adventure. His second book, Final Duty was released in January of 2013. His most recent science fiction novel is Recall the Earth, the second book of the Guardian Knights of Terra series.
Today, Kyle and his wife Lorraine live on a small family farm in Western Washington State. When he isn't writing he repairs gates and fences, tends bees and chickens and blogs anything that comes to his mind.
HOLY SH*T that was a GOOD book. Dare I say that A Time to Endure was even better than Through Many Fires?; Oh I dare. This post-apocalyptic thriller is fast-paced and action packed. I enjoyed the character development and multiple person perspective that the story was told from. The different perspectives provide a better understanding of what and how different people are dealing with in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks as the nation’s economy teeters on the verge of collapse. I like how A Time to Endure ends in a cliff-hanger; I CANNOT wait for the next novel in this series!
I've enjoyed both books and look forward to further installments. The story is fast-paced and the characters endearing. I find the background and plot surrounding a fallen America both well crafted and plausible. The attention to detail concerning the function of government, the economy, and our military adds to the stories essence. There is a pleasant absence of survivalist perspective - times are difficult but law, order and infrastructure remain to a lesser degree. My concerns with this story are that there is an overabundance of introspective, monologues that slow the action. Not necessary as the characters actions and interactions convey the author's intended message. Great story, and I will continue reading.
I almost gave this two stars because there is way too much god-bothering Christianity in the book - much more than the previous one. It ruins the story and is just contrived and clunky - especially the random pastor quoting Nemiah.
The plot isn't as good as the first - as someone else has pointed out, there is too much small town action and not enough global scale intrigue. Also, the character development goes nowhere in this book. I feel the author has stunted his female characters and relegated them to traditional roles way too much, which contrast dramatically with their roles in the first book in the series.
At this stage I am torn as to whether I will read the third in the series. If the author is reading, I implore you to remember you have an international audience who are not necessarily Christians and who find too much god and bible stuff irrelevant and distracting. I believe you are a strong writer and have a good story to tell, ditch the bible quotes, focus on conflict at an international scale and bring your strong warrior, females back into the story.
First, read book 1, Through Many Fires, so you understand the characters and the world they live in. Then sit back and enjoy a journey through some terrifying events that I personally hope never happen, but are totally plausible. Kyle's characters react as all of us would and that makes them easy to like or hate. Since this is book 2, it focuses on new characters as well as old, which made the book fresh, a plus when reading a series. I look forward to reading book 3.
Mr Pratt in my opinion is a great story writer. Taken what can happen if American people continue continue to bury their heads in the sand and only get their news and life information from one side's news short sound bites
I have read other stories by Mr Pratt and enjoy them just as well
This book gives further development to the characters in the first book in the series. Some new characters are introduced as well. The story continues to realistically explore the struggles of trying to save this nation's values in a world that is collapsing economically and militarily. Excellent series. Highly recommended.
I was curious about the theme, did not read the first book and won't read the third. It was fairly simplistic and had a lot of unnecessary talk about God.
A Time To Endure by Kyle Pratt is a good book with a superb storyline and mostly plausible situations. Though not quite as good as the first book in the series (Through Many Fires), I enjoyed the story and found myself reading "just one more chapter" late into the night.
The story begins where the previous book left off, the beginning stages of civil war. The fight has reached our hero Caden Westmore's hometown of Hansen and Caden is determined to protect the town while also engaging in military missions and direct action outside of town. To further complicate matters, an international street gang takes up shop within the town, creating havoc. It's a cluster-you-know-what but Caden draws on his combat experience and situational awareness to take the fight to the enemy.
The characters are what drive any story. If we don't like the characters, the story is going to drag on. Fortunately, most of the characters in this book are likable, believable and authentic. Along with Caden, we are introduced to several new strong characters. including a teenager, Zack Brenner, First Sergeant Fletcher, and Sheriff Hoover. Caden's girlfriend Maria from the first book has a somewhat diminished role in this story, but that actually makes sense based on the storyline. In any case, this is an entertaining good read.
Book 2 in the Strengthen What Remains series by Kyle Pratt is A time to Endure. MCs Major Caden Westmore and his girlfriend Maria's romance continues and we are introduced to another, a new protegee for Caden, teen Zack rennan, who becomes a strong character throughout this book and the last of the trilogy, Braving the Storms, under Caden's guidance. Caden and Maria work together to protect and preserve their neighbourhood in Hansen, Washington, creating a safe and law-abiding haven for the residents under the control of Sheriff Hoover and First Sergeant Fletcher. Although the world around them is descending into anarchy, with gang violence, invasion by foreign nationals and virtual civil war, the residents of Hansen bond together and stand strong in the face of danger and adversity. A great post-apocalyptic tale that will make a memorable trilogy in the genre. Hurry up Book 3!
This book did not seem as interesting as the first. My main issue was that President Durant's nefarious actions and collusion with other nations, so prominent in book 1, was way in the background in this book. This book took place around the small town and there were only some references to what the international forces and Durant might be doing. The MS-13 characters, while they make a good bad guy, was too prominent and more of a standard-issue story line that is found in countless books of this genre. I am not a fan of religion in books, though I get that the characters in a small town might be. Still, the religious stuff was a bit much at times. Hopefully, the national crisis with a rogue president and people wanting to fight him and the international forces trying to take over will be back in the next book.
The story of Caden continues as the country falls apart and he tries to keep his family togather and safe. This book was even a better pace than the first one. The only drawback was the overtly christian references. I understant that most people who read these types of books tend to be more conservative but there are quite a few of us who are not and maybe not even christian.That said the characters continued to get stronger and the story just kept clicking along at a fast pace. I finished the book in one night.
This is the second book in the Strengthen What Remains series. I'm still really enjoying this series and eager to keep reading.
In this second book several new characters are introduced, both friend and foe. The new friendly characters, teenagers, are quite interesting and have real potential to contribute to the overall story. The villains are gangs attempting to take advantage of ever increasing crumbling of societal structure.
I'm looking forward to book three which is next up on my list.
Loved it just as much as every other book by Kyle Pratt
Mr. Pratt is a talented author and this book is great because of the time that he has put into developing the characters in the people that we can easily relate to. As each character contemplates the good and the evil in the world, Mr. Pratt shows us why it is necessary for good men to stand up to evil lest it flourish and destroy our sacred country
Excellent follow up to the first book. Once again full of action, love, betrayal, and in the end bitter sadness and threaded throughout the book the sacrifice of men and women for loved ones.
Second in the series. An enjoyable read, but I need to take a little time off from Caden and crew but will likely return and read the third book after reading a couple of other books.
Book two much better than the first IMO. The characters more fully developed and the plot more fully explained. All-in-all the improvements in book two increase my interest to move on with book three. The basic feelings of hope continue through book two. Major Caden grows in strength and purpose as his responsibilities mount. Our young hero Zach grows as well as he meets challenge after challenge and continues to amaze even himself. Civil war has not fully materialized yet, but the threat is still there as people panic and food disappears. The Chinese have yet been approached while the terrorists and MS13 gangs have been dealt a decisive blow. We'll see how this all pans out in the next volume (when it arrives).
Following a great novel with a sequel is often hard. This didn't have to be. Had the author continued with a more national approach as in the first novel, I think this would have been a success. Sadly he didn't do it. This novel does not cleanly continue the story line of the first or provide any closure. I'm not sure that I will invest in a third of, there is a third.
HOWEVER. It didn't really... go anywhere, did it? Will there be another book?
I liked Zach well enough, but the puppy love between teenagers was a annoying. There are two wars going on (terrorists/China and civil war), and yet we get pages and pages of Zach blushing and being sad that her dad doesn't like him.
This book was slower than the first. I didn't have the impact the first one did, and I think it was because it was focused on a small community not the global scale of the first book. I reached a point where I was skimming chapters because the story just dragged on. I probably won't pick up the next book.
"A Time to Endure" is the sequel to the fast-paced thriller "Through Many Fires". Even though I thought the first book was more exciting than this one, I am looking forward to reading the third, if there is one.