Bracken MacLeod

Lyn Lowry fantasizes about escaping her ordinary life as a waitress in a rural roadside diner, dreaming about the excitement of living in the big city. But when the first bullets smash through the windows of Your Mountain Home Kitchen, she finds herself living in a nightmare instead. Surviving the initial attack is only the beginning of the ordeal as Lyn reluctantly steps up to take control and find a way to escape alive. The other survivors trapped in the diner aren't all eager to follow her lead, and the threat from her companions may be more dangerous than the sniper's rifle outside. Navigating hostilities from both inside and out, Lyn quickly learns she can't rely on anyone but herself to save her life.And she thinks she might have seen something lurking in the dark trees at the edge of the forest. Something that wants her to know, all hope is gone.

Mountain Home

4.5 stars, rounded up because the ending was amazing and I appreciated the author's insight into this new edition via the author’s note at the end.

In the first book I read by this author, Come To Dust, what I loved most was the plot and the state of the world that he wrote about. In this book, I loved the characters the most. The two main characters, Lyn the protagonist and Joanie the antagonist, are both very well developed: you feel Joanie's pain and understand her motives, while you root for Lyn despite her not fitting the archetype of a hero (and not always acting like a hero should). Some of the secondary characters were not as well developed, such as the secondary antagonist Beau who was almost cartoonish in his cowardice, racism, and sexism, but he was still believable in the story.

The book is very action-packed and tense for the duration, which made it a very enjoyable read. There were a couple times when I was slightly confused about the timeline, but it was nothing major, and I think if I went back and reread, I'd put the pieces together a bit better than upon my first read. I also wish there had been a bit more detailed about Kreewatan.

For the first half of the book, I had planned to give it 4 stars, but upon staying up way too late to finish it, I realized it's good enough for 4.5. The author's note at the end was super interesting and I love the discussion of what things to cut vs the things the author really felt were important to include in this "restoration" edition. I agree with the author in that the two big changes for this edition (that were originally included before it was published) definitely made the book better. I look forward to reading his other works!

Mountain Home

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