One Year After by William R. Forstchen

Title:  One Year After
Author:  William R. Forstchen
Pages:  302
Genre:  Dystopian Thriller
Publisher:  Forge, 2015
Series:  John Matherson, Book 2

Synopsis:  The story picks up a year after One Second After ends, two years since the detonation of nuclear weapons above the United States brought America to its knees. After suffering starvation, war, and countless deaths, the survivors of Black Mountain, North Carolina, are beginning to piece back together the technologies they had once taken for granted: electricity, radio communications, and medications.

They cling to the hope that a new national government is finally emerging. Then comes word that most of the young men and women of the community are to be drafted into an "Army of National Recovery" and sent to trouble spots hundreds of miles away. When town administrator John Matherson protests the draft, he's offered a deal: leave Black Mountain and enter national service, and the draft will be reduced. But the brutal suppression of a neighboring community under its new federal administrator and the troops accompanying him suggests that all is not as it should be with this burgeoning government...

Review:  This tale did not touch me in quite the same way as the first novel, but it was still very, very good.  It all seems so much like what would happen and could happen.  I will have to wait for the final novel to come out in January of 2017 and I'll be waiting impatiently to find out what happens next.

Anyone who hasn't read these books, I say again, please do.  They are eye-opening and scary and realistic.  The first one will take your breath away and this one will make you wonder about how our country would ever manage to come back from such a tragedy.

Rating:  8 / 10