Tosca Lee: A Single Light

By Kelly Bridgewater

Six months after vanishing into an underground silo with sixty others, Wynter and Chase emerge to find the area abandoned. There is no sign of Noah and the rest of the group that was supposed to greet them when they emerged—the same people Wynter was counting on to help her locate the IV antibiotics her gravely ill friend, Julie, needs in order to live.

As the clock ticks down on Julie’s life, Wynter and Chase embark on a desperate search for medicine and answers. But what they find is not a nation on the cusp of recovery thanks to the promising new vaccine Wynter herself had a hand in creating, but one decimated by disease. What happened while they were underground?

With food and water in limited supply and their own survival in question, Chase and Wynter must venture further and further from the silo. Aided by an enigmatic mute named Otto, they come face-to-face with a society radically changed by global pandemic, where communities scrabble to survive under rogue leaders and cities are war zones. As hope fades by the hour and Wynter learns the terrible truth of the last six months, she is called upon once again to help save the nation she no longer recognizes—a place so dark she’s no longer sure it can even survive.

Fast-paced and taut, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense about the risks of living in a world outside the safe confines of our closely-held beliefs and the relationships and lives that inspire us.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

End of the World thrillers are interesting. They take on a what-if scenario and run with it. As for Tosca Lee with her The Line Between and A  Single Light, Lee crafts a world that begins with a cult escape and turns into a vaccine that is needed to save the world from early dementia. I highly recommend reading these two novels in order or the second novel really won't make much sense. I even went back and re-read the first one before diving into the second one because I read so many books in between that I couldn't remember much of the first one. Boy, am I glad that I did. As for the plot of A Single Light, it moves quite rapidly. I recommend sitting aside an entire day with no interruptions, which I know is practically impossible. Lee is wonderful at ending each chapter on a cliffhanger, so of course, I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened. This story had so many twists and turns that I loved it. The plot is fast paced and had me flipping through the pages. The characters of Wynter and Chase are fabulous. I love how quickly Wynter fit into the world she escaped to and how much she did to save others. She has a heart to save not only her niece but anyone she comes in contact with. Chase, the hero, is an ex-Marine who does anything for Wynter, even love her when she doesn't want to be loved. Tosca Lee crafted a wonderful end of the world thriller that kept me glued to the page. If this is the last one, then I'm sad to see these characters go, I would love to see what happens next. How do they actually rebuild the world? Fans of The Hunger Games might enjoy this novel. I sure did.

I received a complimentary copy of A Single Light by Tosca Lee from Howard Books, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Purchase A Single Light

About the Author:

From Amazon

Tosca Lee is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of ten novels including THE LINE BETWEEN, THE PROGENY, FIRSTBORN, THE LEGEND OF SHEBA, ISCARIOT, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages and been optioned for TV and film. A notorious night-owl, she loves movies, playing football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband.

You can find Tosca at ToscaLee.com, on social media, or hanging around the snack table. A SINGLE LIGHT, Tosca's highly-anticipated sequel to THE LINE BETWEEN, releases September 2019 and is available for preorder now. (Taken from Amazon.)

Tosca Lee: The Line Between

By Kelly Bridgewater

In this frighteningly believable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee, an extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.

When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.

As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.

Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

Tosca Lee is a wonderful writer who captures the unusual and writes a wonderful, captivating story. With her newest thriller, The Line Between, she does definitely that. At first, I was a little confused by the beginning of the novel, but after getting into the story, it begins to make sense. A good thriller shows a world in dire need of some type of help from some type of threat either man-made or biochemical. In The Line Between, Lee gave us a story wrapped around a biochemical agent.

Lee's writing is clear and concise. Like I mentioned earlier, when the story starts, it jumps around from about three points of views, and I don't know whose story I was supposed to be following, then Lee leads us to two points of view and that took me a while to sort out too. It was a little confusing. But trust me, stick with it. It eventually makes complete sense why Lee wrote the story the way she did.

The plot was original and unpredictable too. I didn't see the cult twist when I read the synopsis, but I think it worked really well for the story Lee was trying to tell. I can't imagine the amount of research and horror stories she had to wade through to come up with a realistic background for New Earth and for Wynter. I liked the biochemical agent element too. I was wrapped up in the chase through the countryside, hoping Wynter met her goal.

There is a hint of a romance toward the end of the novel, but nothing like a contemporary romance or a romantic suspense. Nothing too touchy feely. Just the way I like my thrillers or suspense novels.

As a word of caution, there are a number of cuss words written in the text. I read them and kept moving on with the story. Yes, they were a little shocking to see, but I enjoy Lee's writing, so I just kept reading.

Overall, The Line Between by Tosca Lee is a unique story from an accomplished thriller writer who takes the unknown and makes it known. I really got wrapped up in the story and finished it one day. Can't wait to see what Lee comes up with next.  Fans of Ted Dekker, Amanda G. Stevens, and James Rubart might want to pick up this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of The Line Between by Tosca Lee from Howard Books, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

About the Author:

From Amazon

Tosca Lee is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the House of Bathory duology (THE PROGENY and FIRSTBORN), ISCARIOT, THE LEGEND OF SHEBA, DEMON: A MEMOIR, HAVAH: THE STORY OF EVE, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker (FORBIDDEN, MORTAL, SOVEREIGN). A notorious night-owl, she loves watching TV, eating bacon, playing video games and football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband.

You can find Tosca at www.ToscaLee.com, on social media, or hanging around the snack table. Look for A SINGLE LIGHT, the follow-up to THE LINE BETWEEN, September 2019. (Taken from Amazon.)