Recent EMP attacks have left the country in a state of chaos and upheaval. With two of his children on the East Coast, Ben Davis has left Colorado behind, embarking on a cross-country journey with his eldest son, Joel, one of Joel’s classmates, Allie, and the family dog, Gunner.
Very few modern vehicles remain functional, but thanks to Joel’s 1972 Chevy Blazer, Ben and his crew are mobile and able to carry supplies. But that doesn’t mean they’re safe in this post-apocalyptic world.
They soon discover that life as they know it is over. Danger fills every moment of their new reality. No longer can people be trusted. Especially with resources dwindling and new threats around every bend in the road.
Survival means working together, but it also means the teenagers have to grow up fast. Ben struggles with some decisions he’s forced to make, but he refuses to let his family suffer at the hands of the desperate. Even if he has to shed blood to keep them safe.
Ben’s skills as a former Army Ranger are tested repeatedly as he fights to lead his crew across the new wasteland of America. Will there come a time when the dark road ahead is too much?
By the end pf this episode the authors politics seem to be in full view. That has really turned me off of the story. So, I'm at a crossroads and don't know if I want to go on. Plus I really hate this style of writing, that said and since I'm on a fixed income it's probably better to give up now and go looking for a real book instead of a serialized story.
Escape is not much different from the 1st book in the series...planning, planning, and not much action. The threesome finally hit the road from CO to Maryland in a SUV loaded with supplies. Once again, only 48 hrs after the event, there are very few people seen - except in one instance - it is assumed that many are staying indoors in fear of gangs and other threatening individuals. What's more unbelievable is the amount of bodies (passengers trapped) within crashed vehicles that are visible everywhere. The story covers two days of travel and can be read in a couple of hours. The rest of the individual books in the series (3) are near the same size and sell for $2.99 each as did this one. As a result of the slow-moving story, I will pass on the rest of this series and seek something with a little more action.
I read the first, hoping it was teasing us in. This one was very short, I feel the characters don’t have any realness about them. Sticking with it though. Hopefully next be better
The execution lacked in the first book, but in shortage of any other books right now I thought I give this author and the series another shot. Boy was I wrong, it was worse. The first 36% of the book consisted solely on watching them packing the car, in unpleasant and drawn out details. There is nothing happening at all. No depth, no planning for the trip, nothing. Listings of all the things they pack and all the details about the guns was a massive dump of useless information and bored me to death. I love military books, it is just how it is written and how everything is drawn out and still not telling me something new. Just get on with the bloody story. If I want a manual on packing and weapons I would have bought myself a subject book. The author often uses the same topics, descriptions and thought processes, and therefor shows a limited world building. In the first book they drove into town, main topic wrecked cars, and the same experiences were used in the second book when they again started driving and the main topic of course were the wrecks. A superficially delivered inner struggle if taking care of Allie is right or wrong, is again delivered in both books. Nothing new or any development. The few dialogues are always about the dog and polite interactions. But no real conversations. Those are glossed over by telling us they talked some more. Which we are not privy off. Inconsistencies riddled the book. ...”anxious to put some distance between them and the camouflage truck.”... How can they put some distance between each other, when they drive in the same direction? Which the author proofs one page later when they catch up to them!!! And there are a handful of topics on repeat. The problem is there is nothing else, no development or wider horizon. No interactions with other people, nothing.
The writing is average and everything else is one dimensional and superficial and inconsistent at times. This series is in desperate need of a good Editor and the amount of books at least cut in half.
Like his first book in this serious, it would have been pretty good had he not put in his BS right wing bias. It doesn't make sense to me trying to sell a book to a broad audience and then bashing left wing ideas and placing blame on this in books. You're going to lose half of your audience! I thought I would give his 2nd in this series a try hoping he'd gotten enough bad reviews to think about doing that in the rest of the series. But he just had to add jabs. I will not spend anymore money on him!
Also, he went into way too much detail with certain things that made parts drag on. Who cares which characters carried which equiptment back to the vehicle and every detail getting there.
I had liked the first book, but struggled a bit with this one. It is so short it is hard to actually review on its own. There was a lot of time given to what Ben was going to back for the trip and how he organized it. There was way too much on the exact guns he had etc. I was 36% through the book before they even left. I will read the next just to see what happens and hope it improves.
Lots of time devoted to informing the reader about guns ,rifles ,ammunition etc .Very stereotypical male and female roles .Lots of killing because there appears to be only nasty people left !.
🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠 so let’s talk about all the problems I have with this 🫶
I don’t need a whole paragraph of every single fucking item you put in your car. This whole book is a day trip about how they ONLY run into bad guys and ofc kill them 🫠
Joel for the life of him cannot STOP thinking the SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN
“she was a bright spot he’d begun to count on. Joel was so thankful that things had worked out the way they did. Of course, he felt awful about her mom, but it was all the more reason he was glad he and his dad could be there for her.”
He repeats this every time we are in his head he just says it differently. I get it he is a teenager but come on 🫠 it was cute at first but it got annoying real fast. There is nothing to his character but this 👍 take out any of over detailed paragraph about ANY item they have and add some details to your character.
we only got a couple of paragraphs of the girls I guess pov? But any time we were in her mind it was Joel and how much she likes him. That’s all you get with her character all while you get Joel being happy she’s there BUT feeling bad her mom died BUT glad she’s there 🫠
You have this problem with all…3 characters I swear they have the same thoughts and make no progress in their head?
So I don’t understand the NEED to put your political beliefs in the end? Dead ass it added nothing to the character other then omg I regret being an absent father to my other two kids and completely blame my ex wife for it when I too had a cell phone 🧍♀️ so let me tell the readers how much I regret not calling my kids AND how much I “hate”America politics??? I’m confused
“He felt like Americans had gone overboard in their attempt to include, congratulate, and accept everyone for everything regardless of actual effort.”
Huh??? This is dead ass a post apocalyptic book and you add that? 😃 ofc there is more but I’m not going to copy paste the whole thing because it’s stupid
The dog is the best character in the end. Other characters were very generic 🧍♀️ if it wasn’t obvious I’m not wasting my time anymore. I gave book one too much grace 🫠
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I initially gave both Mr. Miller's first book in the Dark Road series and this one only 3 stars but revised it to 4 stars (I very rarely give 5 stars).
Others have provided synopses so I'll focus on critique.
Overall, the series is a very good, engaging, well-written casual read. Mr. Miller develops his characters fairly well and provides a good mix of action and introspection. In general, he paints word-pictures that are easy to visualize. He doesn't sermonize, and I disagree with others that he bashes liberals. That Mr. Miller slants his writing to the right is understandable for the cast of characters he's created. But I find most of the philosophical musings to be supported by reasonable rationale rather than any general disdain for liberal positions.
On the negative side, the Dark Road series is fairly formulaic (at least through book 2) and makes the mistake of creating characters more heroic than ones with which the reader is likely to identify. Most of us aren't rugged, prepared, handsome, Army Rangers that own a sporting goods store nor blond, pretty, totally pleasant and engaging cheerleader types. Nor are all bad guys whisky swilling, hot-rodding, villains covered in tattoos. It's easier to create a plot line around a cast like this but I think Mr. Miller's writing skills could support a more challenging project for him.
I'd really like to see him present us with a character with whom we can instantly identify but who turns out to be a bad guy through circumstances we can rationalize as justifiable in some way. Getting into the mind of a character like that is challenging but would make for a better story.
In summary, I'm reading book 3. It's fun, casual reading. I'm very much in hopes Mr. Miller will create works with more meat to them in the future.
I'm listening to this series on Audible so I can't tell how long the books are. However, I would confidently guess that these books are under 300 pages, and maybe under 250 pages.
Understand that this book is not truly a novel unto itself, but is rather merely the continuation of another story. With that in mind, this is a pleasant continuation of an overall larger plot. I got the 5 book bundle on Audible for only 1 credit, and that is probably the correct way to view these books, i.e. it is not 5 books, but 5 parts of 1 novel.
What i like most about this series: the protagonist, Ben, is not a moron. He doesn't make the mistakes that you so often see in novels. For example (no spoiler), he drives by a series of cars that are parked in an obvious roadblock way, and he recognizes that the cars are parked too precisely to be random. In many novels, the main character would drive up to the cars that form a roadblock, and then the main character would be surprised when someone pops up from behind the cars and starts shooting. There've been at least two times when I recognized a potential ambush site, and so did the protagonist, fortunately.
Why do I love these PAF titles? Escape is also written as if everyone in the book is socially awkward and strangely polite and lives in a kind of Hardy Boys meets Happy Days world where teens crush without actually touching and dad is obeyed without question.
In this one, book two of Bruno Millers “Dark Road” series, Joel and his dad, along with Joel’s high school crush, Allie, get in the car and start heading for Baltimore. An EMP has taken out the power grid and caused a failure in all things electrical and also made people act terribly towards each other, so the trip is fraught with peril for the prepper dad and the two teenagers in his care.
They manage to get supplies and head down the backroads.
I’m wondering how everyone else died? Where is law enforcement and the military? How did everything fall apart almost immediately? These people are facing no zombies or foreign invaders but they behave as though that’s what they’re doing. It’s seriously paranoid behavior but…on to book three.
The second book in what some people feel is more of a mini-series. However you choose to look at it, I enjoyed the adventure. You could look at it as a day or two in the life of a chaotic post-apocalyptic world filled with violence and a few choice words.
Ben, Joel, Allie, and Gunner prepare as best they can for their upcoming journey. From their visit to town, they know things won't be easy but when your family is involved you do what you must.
I would be of two minds - one stay and protect the son I have or tough it out in the big bad world - as I realized, reading this story, I may not have made it as far as they did but I sure as heck would do what I could to get to my children.
I am going to write this review for all 14 of the books in this series, because the positives and negatives are the same for each book. Each book involves at least one major challenge while the characters fight their way to family and then back home cross country. The challenges are definitely page-turners and I often found myself wondering "how are they going to get out of THIS one?" The main criticism I have is that the reader has to spend way too much time inside the minds of some of the characters, and these characters worry about the same things, time after time. There could easily have been less books in this series if all the re-hashing of anxieties were removed.
Ben, Joel and Allie have to survive in a world gone made. Determined to get to his children and Allies dad they have to set off on a harrowing cross country trip.
This story was an improvement and build beautifully on the first one. There are still parts that have an over abundance of information for the average reader who doesn’t know about guns etc. But overall a story I thoroughly enjoyed reading and that had me on the edge of me seat in a couple of places. I can’t wait to see what happens next for these three people and the world they’re trying to survive in.
Another great read. Good continuation of book one. I liked, as opposed to some of the reviewers, the amount of detail in the gathering of guns and stuff for the escape and also the way the writer is meting out justice as needed. Good work up on the stories of the main players. It will be interesting to see the development of their lives and others they will undoubtedly meet on the road. Hated for the book to end. Good clean read and, unfortunately, very believable in today's world. Can't wait for the next book. Keep 'em coming!
I voluntarily offered to review this book with no obligations and my opinions are honest The characters + storytelling were very captivating We continue in following the adventures of Ben and his crew. This is not the same world they usued to know They are all trying to survive one day at the time. I can't wait to see what happens in the next book. The author pulls you into her world + she does not intend to let you go The storytelling + the character's build are still awesome! It has all the ingredients that you need for a great book!
Ben, Joel, and Allie have now left the relative safety of the home outside of Durango, Colorado and started their trek east to find Ben's youngest children and ex, as well as Allie's father. The story is gripping and holds your attention. The situations they encounter realistic, and the pace is just right. There is not "magically arrive at the next destination" moments. I love the journey that Mr. Miller is taking his characters on, and that he doesn't gloss over the worst of humanity that comes out in bad situations.
I’ve started reading a few apocalyptic series’s from other authors and couldn’t finish them. For some reason there’s more blood, death and violence than character development. Not the case here. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading these first two in this series. The characters are memorable and real and the situations they’ve found themselves in is realistic. I’ve read the first two in the series in one day and am going to start the third. That’s my only complaint. They are too short.
Holy crap i loved this book... It's probably my favourite post-apocalyptic books so far, i like that we get to see the characters actually experiencing emotions, and I often feel that post-apocalyptic books lack emotions and that realness in those situations, the book was well written and goes at a steady pace, their is a few moments that get the heart racing, I liked seeing Ben slowing warming up to having allie around, the book continues on from book one which I really enjoyed (it feels like watching episodes of a tv show) I will be diving into book three asap! 🤠
Book 2 in the new post apocalypse Dark Road series is as gritty and realistic as it's predecessor 'Breakdown'. I like the father/son lead characters Ben and Joel and the way they have been developed in this instalment. Allie plays a bigger part this time and is also developing into an interesting character. Have given four stars as I feel it the book would've benefitted from a bit more action and pace, but Escape is still a worthwhile read :)
When I finished the first book, I was ready to find out what was next, so I bought Escape and continued the journey. These are fast paced, easy to read, and entertaining books. It only took as long as it did to finish because I was on vacation and reading in short snatches. I plan to buy each in the series because they tell a great story of survival. I hope we never have to put these skills to work, but who knows what this crazy world's future holds.
Again, this is so generic. The main characters are all Gary Sues, and the one girl has zero personality. Well, the teen boy also has no personality, if we’re being honest. Everyone is just sooo wholesome.
I don’t mind the lack of action, but the books should definitely be longer then. This book was basically one day of road trip.
And what the hell was that all about “lack of morals” in today’s society???
This second book felt to small honestly not much happed.
The father, son, his female classmate and their dog leave Colorado.
The only thing that really happened was they saw a group of people trying to get into a Walmart but when some of the people saw their truck they tried to swarm the vehicle, the dad ended up having to shoot and kill 2 people then they kept on their way.
That’s the entire book
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
As it looks like the world situation resembles what is described in this book. I look at how violent our world has become and how other countries view the U.S. Ideas my children and grand children may face these situations. I am enjoying t Seeing how Ben Joel Nd Allie face them .
Ben, Joel, and Allie are now headed east to get Allie to her Dad and hopefully find Joel's younger siblings and Ben' s two other children. So many things are different now in the world 🌎. Will Ben, Joel, and Allie make it to their destinations? A great 👍 read with very good reacts on survival and life on the road.
I'm not a prepper but I am mindful of the signs of the times. It appears to me that we all aught to listen up and get prepared for what the future may bring.
Great story line, characters are believable. It draws you right in and before long it's midnight and you are ready for the next story.
Good writing and fun story so far. I will say that if this wasn’t on Kindle Unlimited, I would give it a 3 due to how short it is. Really enjoying it so far and like that they actively avoid terrible decisions. It helps that they owned a backpacking store with everything that they could ever need, but I’m cool with that. Can’t wait to see how it plays out.