Book Review: Dark Retreat by Grace Hamilton

Three months after life as she knows it was decimated, Megan Wolford has only one goal: protect her daughter, Caitlin, at any cost. When a mysterious illness strikes Caitlin down, Megan is forced to forage for medical supplies at a remote lodge. The last thing she wants is help from her fellow survivors when so many in her life have let her down—but soon she'll find herself with no other option. 


Ex-Navy SEAL Wyatt Morris is doing everything he can to hold his family together after the tragic death of his prepper Dad, so when Megan enters their lands, he is mistrustful at first despite feeling drawn to her. He won't turn away an ill child though--no matter how deadly the world has become. But the arrival of another stranger named Kyle soon gives them all a new reason to be suspicious. Wyatt knows he’ll have to forge alliances in order to keep his family safe, but trusting the wrong person could be a deadly mistake. 


When Megan and Wyatt discover her daughter’s illness may be linked to Kyle’s arrival, it sets off a race to discover the truth before it’s too late to save Caitlin—and the rest of the Morris clan. Can they work together for survival . . . and something more?


My Review: 
Megan is seriously worried that her daughter Caitlin might be dying so when she sees the abandoned looking hidden cabin, she decides to stop there and rest, looking for medicine that might help. She is unaware that the owners of the cabin are about to arrive and are going to be startled to see a woman and child have taken up residence there. The family feel sympathy for Megan's plight and offer their help which Megan doesn't want to take. However, the man responsible for Caitlin's illness has tracked Megan to the cabin and is planning to kill them both and take the cabin for himself...

I thought the plot was quite interesting. I'm always a fan of apocalypse drama, though this one goes to the aftermath when the disaster has already happened. Kyle's desperate quest to make sure Caitlin died and didn't tell on him did seem somewhat silly in theory. Why would you have to follow a kid you've poisoned to ensure she died? The kid would be too sick to tell on you and even if she did, Megan wasn't exactly going to tell on him to the police! She and Caitlin were leaving the area and would have been out of Kyle's life but Kyle is obviously just a stupid man and I liked the way that this sub plot unfolded at the cabin. It added a darker element to the story and I wanted to yell at everyone to keep Kyle away from Caitlin! I always like these prepper families in their cabin retreats, embarking on new projects and deciding whether they can trust a new arrival as the world is now changing. I generally enjoy that kind of book plot as long as it is well written and I do feel that this was a well written apocalypse tale. I also liked the work they were doing around the cabin and found it interesting to read about.

I liked Wyatt and his family a lot. They tried to make the cabin look abandoned and run down in the hope that it would deter anyone from using it until they were able to travel to it themselves as disaster unfolds. They have prepared a safe place to go to and they are ready to improve it with comforts and are well capable of defending it against enemies. They decide to let Megan and Caitlin stay and start doing everything they can to save Caitlin's life when they could easily have turned their backs on both of them. I liked the way they were a proper team and looked out for each other. I did get very anxious when Kyle was targeting the dog who was protecting Megan. For those of you who want to know how it turns out, I'll tell you. If you don't want to know, stop reading at the end of this sentence and skip to the next paragraph NOW! *spoiler* OK here it is-the dog gets sick but does recover.

My biggest issue with the story was Megan herself as I really didn't like her attitude. When the family arrive and find her hiding in their cabin, she has the cheek to get all offended and angry with them for being a bit curious about her being there. She is snide and rude, and frankly with her attitude to the offered help, I would have shown her the door and told her to get lost! I get that she doesn't want to rely on other people and finds it hard to trust but it is obvious very quickly that the family are good people who are trying to help and she keeps snubbing them but she isn't bothered about using up their resources while she is there, even as she plots her escape. Her daughter is sick and dying yet she isn't putting her first-she is planning to sleep outdoors with a sick child in dreadful weather rather than accept the food, shelter and security that he family offer her. I got tired of her whining thoughts about having to leave which seemed to come every few paragraphs and was dull and repetitive. 

Wyatt did bug me a little in the beginning. Plotting a romance with a complete stranger whose dying child your family are battling to save and without a clue how Megan felt seems somewhat rude and I didn't like that. I get being attracted to her but it borders on creepy when he is plotting how to make her stay and be his woman! However I grew to like Wyatt as the book progressed. I don't think a full romance between them would bother me that much even though I don't really like romance in my apocalypse books. The main thing that is stopping me from reading on is Megan and the way she continues to reject the family's help and gets herself into dangerous problems which means they need to come and rescue her. It seems to be a pattern for the next book too so I decided not to read on with the series.

It was a well written apocalypse book with real potential but I found Megan's angst too repetitive and annoying to enjoy it as much as I should have. 

Read April 2019.
3 stars.