Review No 5: In Strange Worlds by Brenda Cheers

I will out myself here and admit I wouldn't normally read a book in this genre. However my opinion changed about one page in as I realised it was a story I could relate to because of the way it is told.

Meg is just a normal woman living in Melbourne. Going into hospital to give birth she wakes after Caesarian surgery to find herself the only person alive. Everybody else around her lies dead from a mysterious virus. She has to make a decision - to give in and die alongside everybody else or to get herself together and fight to survive this alien new world.

I was totally drawn into Meg's day to day experiences - deciding where the best place to live would be, the ability to walk into any shop and take what you want and learning to become totally self sufficient. Aided at first by the internet she soon has to revert back to books as the servers drop out and the world wide web fades away. Meg soon knows the best way to break locks and how best to administer medical help to herself and the other two survivors who "find" Meg at her new home on the Sunshine Coast. As a Sunshine Coast local I loved the accurate local references and was chuffed Meg had chosen it as her base.

The tone changes as the story progresses from Meg's initial fight just for her own survival to dealing with other mysterious, sinister forces that begin to infiltrate the haven she has created. The ending was a total surprise taking the reader down a complete new path and certainly left me wanting more. I am certainly looking forward to the sequel.

Overall this is a gripping and suspenseful story told in a way that almost everybody could relate to.