Fallen

A great post-apocalyptic novel

I usually don't read this type of book,but wow,am I glad I followed a book club friend's recommendation. This exciting novel is the first book in a trilogy,the next due out in December.I am very much looking forward to it.
There's death,destruction,pain,madness,roving gangs,cannibals,a love story,and more.From up out of the earth,killing mists emerged.They are attracted to metals and devour them,even the metals in a human body.What is left behind is a handful of sand. Once you breath in the mist,there is no rescue but death.Billions of people have died in agony.Those left behind have to fight to survive. This fight to survive makes an enthralling story. I highly recommend it!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Deadly Mists and Mysterious Gifts

Description:
In this fast-paced post-apocalyptic romance, the Earth is plagued by lethal mists that dissolve all living organisms and metal structures, excluding plants. Anything the mists touch, including humans, becomes a formless dead dust; and most of the human and animal populations have fallen prey.
Emma and her daughter Mandy have survived the mists, finding food and shelter in whatever places they can. There are several orphaned children in their group, a few with strange gifts that mysteriously manifested when the mists began. Emma can heal someone just by touching them, and one of the children is slightly clairvoyant.
When a group of men save Mandy from the mists, Emma must decide what is best for the children; traveling with no protection, or joining the new group? So she finds their leader, Arthur, and trades her "affections" for a safe haven.
Their bargain begins as necessity, trading her womanly goods for food and shelter, but Arthur and Emma eventually start to fall for one another. Unfortunately, as soon as they give in to their desires they are tested. The mists are getting worse, rogue riders are attacking, and the other survivors can't be trusted, especially around Emma and the children. Can Arthur and Emma protect themselves and everyone that's relying on them? Or will the mists claim everyone and everything they love?

Review:
Fallen definitely had my attention from page one. It is an intense post-apocalyptic action/romance that's so well written you feel like the mists exist; (and you will probably avoid fog after reading). Being a fan of the survival-horror genre, I didn't know how a "survival-romance" would mesh, but Traci Slatton made it work. Her writing style is really descriptive and has a great flow to it; one minute your heart is racing, and the next minute you can't help but smile. The characters, Emma especially, had an authentic quality to them. They weren't just cookie-cutter characters, but 3-dimensional, and the dialogue fit them perfectly. As for the plot, it was very well developed, fast-paced, twisty, unique, and you won't see the ending coming. I personally can't wait for the next book in the trilogy!

Rating: On the Run (4.5/5)

*** I received this book from FSB Associates (Telemachus Press) in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

an exhilarating post apocalyptic thriller

Ten months ago the white miasma Mists began to ooze from the caves. Everything burned except chlorophyll. Billions died as the Mists sucked out metals from humans and other beings on the planet during the Day five months ago when people cried in anguish. Scientist could not explain or stop it. The religious crazies insist God is punishing the global Sodom and Gomorrah, but offer no redemption except death.

So far Emma has survived along with her five years old daughter Mandy though they have come close to being history. The single mom, who carries a gun to kill her child if infected, travels with her offspring and seven lost little orphans. When the Mist has Mandy in sight, a man on a horse arrives in time as the Mist leaves. Arthur takes the nine to a camp where the mists cannot attack. Emma realizes Arthur can disperse the Mists. To keep her eight youngsters safe, she agrees to obey his command. She knows some of her charges have psychic skills and she soon meets others who do to. However, Arthur's former colleague and now bitter adversary Alexei believes his enemy's friend is his enemy and plans to use the kids to take down his adversary and the earth mother allied with him.

Fallen is an exhilarating post apocalyptic thriller that contains superb twists and spins, which keep the audience wondering what next. The fast-paced story line grips the reader early on with the vivid description of a world gone mad and never slows down as Emma has a bullet with Mandy's name on it just in case. Traci L. Slatton provides an exciting end of the world thriller.

Harriet Klausner

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Gifts Gone Awry!

The world is coming to an end from the mists, phenomena that eat through metals and flesh, leaving behind a sand-like, formless substance. One woman, however, has survived and with her daughter now travels with seven children. They arrive at a camp led by a mysterious, tough guy named Arthur who has created a safe camp and community where the mists cannot attack, but that does not mean they are safe by any means!

For Arthur possesses the ability to sense when the mists are approaching and is able to raise his arms and make the mists disperse permanently. So why is he is so hard and what secrets does he possess about the mists that he will share with no one. Emma makes a very quick agreement with Arthur in order to ensure the safety of her young charges, but she's clear that means no commitment. Arthur wants that contract to mean she will obey him no matter what, and therein the sparks begin to fly.

Emma lives to love her kids, several of whom have very specific and unusual psychic powers, a reality that seems to be tied to the presence of the devastating mists but one that saves their lives more than once. Arthur and the community members have other known and unknown enemies who can be just as lethal as the power bent on eradicating humanity and even the earth. Another female community has several members with their own gifts and they know something about Arthur that they keep telling her to ask him about; this part of the novel occurs with some annoying frequency but does add to the mystery of it all.

The remainder of the novel concerns the ultimate confrontation between rogue riders, Arthur's former friend and now enemy, Alexei, and some conflicts based on so-called Tesla technology. Science can be a very dangerous subject! Ultimately, a surprising conclusion leaves the reader breathless and yet anticipating a return to the core personal and communal conflicts and chaos in another follow-up novel.

The reader is forced to consider previously stable definitions of time, obedience, psychic powers, science, and most importantly, love. Powers exist, perhaps, that enhance long-ignored mental skills but is the power of memory too strong to allow for new ways of relating and the freedom to explore same without guilt and ignoring the instinctive inclinations of the heart?

Many, many questions arise as one reads this story that defies what can be falsely read as a simplistic story/plot. Traci L. Slatton is a writer to watch closely, including in whatever sequels follow this unique, well-written sci-fi novel!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Satisfying story, must read

This is a fast, compelling read. It's a journey of love and loss. Survivors of a global eco-cataclysm are left with paranormal abilities and the threat of madness, extinction, and battle. The end is heart-rending. What will happen to Arthur and Emma?

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Reviewed by: April Book provided by: author Review originally po

Reviewed by: April
Book provided by: author
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book




Fallen by Traci L. Slatton is a book unlike any other that you have read. It will keep you at the edge of your seat and unable to pry your hands and eyes away!




As off as it may sound, I love a great apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic story. It allows all of those theories and thoughts of “what ifs” to run through my mind and I love to have crazy things like that to contemplate. When I read the synopsis of Fallen, I was instantly intrigued and could not wait to begin reading. However, when I did begin reading, I was a bit let down in the fact that I felt as though I was missing something – like perhaps a previous book in the series. Fallen is, indeed, the first book of the series, so I had not found myself in the middle of a series – though it felt a bit like that. Also, (and this is not giving anything away, as it happens within the first couple of chapters of the story), the idea that a woman would make her way to a complete stranger during such a perilous time and offer her body in return for a safe place for her and her group of children to stay seemed a bit “out there” to me. Emma had never met this man and his group of men before and though there were band after band of rogue groups riding around killing, abusing and crazy, somehow Emma felt at ease to offer this proposal to Arthur.




Other than those two aspects that I mentioned, I really enjoyed Fallen. It was a story that gripped me and held tight as I read. There are several characters within the story, the main two being Emma and Arthur – both of which I liked and felt at least a slight connection to, allowing me to care for them. The idea that mists coming from the Earth itself and creating such destruction, devastation and mind-numbing deaths was intriguing and interesting to me. Personally, this idea did not seem that crazy to me, which lent to the credibility of the reality/possibility of such a thing truly happening. I was also gripped with what the world would be like if such a thing were to actually happen – how such simple things as water, medicines, food and basic every day necessities would be gone and/or very few and far between. Toss in the after effects that the mists left behind in people – such as healing abilities, abilities to see into the future and several other talents and you have one heck of an intriguing story that you will be hard-pressed to put down for any length of time.




In addition to the story line of living through an apocalypse, there is the strong thread of the romance that develops between Emma and Arthur. Emma has a husband a continent away, however the fact that she may never again see him plays heavily in the back of her mind. She must focus on the here and now, as well as what is best for her young five-year-old daughter. Survival is the most important priority. It doesn’t take long for the strong chemistry and bond between Emma and Arthur to come to the surface, however the Arthur of the present is not the same person as the Arthur of the past and once his secrets come out, they may shatter everything that Emma has come to gather and the slight security that she has found with him.




Fallen had me on an emotional roller coaster at times – warming my heart, bringing tears to my eyes, heart thundering in suspense and unease as well as the yearning of heat and passion simmering over me. Traci L. Slatton has an excellent story telling ability that allows the reader to fall right in to the story with the characters – bringing the characters to life and the surroundings to vivid reality within the reader’s mind. With the exception of the couple of issues that I had with the beginning of the story, I loved Fallen. The second in the trilogy, Cold Light is also now available and I cannot wait to dive into it. The ending of Fallen had my heart aching and my mind yearning for more.




This is one that I highly recommend and must warn you that once you start, you will be hard-pressed to step away from Emma’s story!

This book presented an unusual dilemma for me. My likes and di

This book presented an unusual dilemma for me. My likes and dislikes
regarding any book are generally pretty clear-cut but that’s not the
case this time and I have to say that I have a love/hate relationship
with Fallen. The end result is a mixed bag with much hope for the
future. So, let me get the negative part out of the way first—I really
dislike the three main characters and, yes, that’s a pretty important
piece of the pie. To explain my feelings about these people, I’ll have
to take them one by one. First, Emma. When we initially meet her, she is
shepherding eight children including her own 5-year-old daughter, Mandy,
and the child is in dire peril from the deadly mist. Emma shows her
strength by being prepared to prevent the inevitable suffering Mandy
faces in a move many parents could never make. Throughout the story, we
will see that Emma is a very complex woman with a good deal of
resilience and intelligence and great bravery in the face of terrible
circumstances and she clearly cares about other people, especially the
children. Why, then, do I not like her much? It’s because she makes a
particular bargain with a stranger and she does so within minutes of
meeting him. Apparently, it never occurs to her to simply ask for
shelter without offering the trade in question. Perhaps it wouldn’t have
worked but she didn’t even try and later, when his attitudes towards her
become painfully obvious, she just accepts it, much like a submissive
woman. The man in question, Arthur, has much going for him including
good looks, intelligent leadership and concern for other people. Where
Emma is concerned, though, he turns into a jealous control freak who
continually has to make his manliness known and who decrees she is to
have no expectations or demands and give him “no backchat and no
attitude” while she contributes to said manliness. At one point, he even
behaves in such a way that, in today’s reality, would cause him to be
considered an abuser and she not only accepts it, she takes pleasure in
it after the fact. Finally, there’s Alexei, leader of another group of
refugees. Alexei indulges in kidnapping, assault, whippings, slavery and
all manner of brutality and it’s nearly impossible to discern any
redeeming qualities in this man other than his love for his son. Despite
that, in a moment of terrible sadness, he makes it possible for Emma to
do what must be done so did I think better of him? Yes and no but, at
the very least, he shows himself to be a very complicated man. There is
much about these three people that I can’t admire or like but—and this
is where things get interesting—I can’t say enough good things about Ms.
Slatton‘s worldbuilding, her creation of the circumstances that have
brought these people together, and the secondary characters. I’m a
devotee of post-apocalyptic fiction and I’m always looking for authors
that do it well. Ms. Slatton not only does it well, she is superb at it.
The mists she has envisioned are uncommon to the subgenre and the menace
that threatens the survivors is palpable. I could actually feel their
fear when confronted by this thing that can’t be stopped by
self-defensive means. One can destroy a zombie’s brain in a variety of
ways or fight off an extraterrestrial attack or learn to live without
modern technology after an EMP but how do you fight a cloud? The pockets
of survivors are exactly what is to be expected when such a global
disaster occurs as are the brutalities and selfishness, the compassion
and generosity that come to the fore when humans are forced into
unaccustomed situations. Although I don’t like Emma and Arthur and
Alexei, I understand them and I’m quite sure there would be many more
like them if we should really find ourselves in a world like this some
day. I also found myself intrigued by the special “gifts” some of the
survivors have discovered in themselves since the advent of the mists.
Then there are the secondary characters. Many authors make the mistake
of neglecting them, of not recognizing how important they can be to the
development of the story, but Ms. Slatton clearly means for these people
to be an integral part of the reader’s connection with her tale. Whether
it’s Tara, the quiet and intelligent leader of a group of women and
children, or James, the hardworking doctor, or the children under Emma’s
care, or Kulap, a woman held captive and brutalized in Alexei’s camp, or
one of the band of marauding rogues, they are most certainly not flat
and dull. Each of the many survivors we meet adds an element to the
overall story and these very diverse people are the ones who made me
believe in the author’s conception of how we would respond to a
post-apocalyptic world. Finally, there is the question of quality of
product. By that, I mean the technical issues such as spelling, grammar,
syntax, formatting of the ebook edition, etc., and also the ability of
the author to effectively tell the tale. Here, I can say Ms. Slatton is
hands down a winner. If there are any flaws, I certainly didn’t notice
them, and this lady can put words together in a marvelous fashion. The
sentences flow and I found myself very sorry to reach the end of the
book. So, I don’t care much for some aspects of the major characters
but I like everything else about this book. What exactly does that mean?
Despite my reservations, I would recommend this to others who like
post-apocalyptic fiction. I suspect I may be too sensitive to certain
behaviors when other readers would see the relationship between Emma and
Arthur as a work in progress (Alexei has to get something of a pass here
because the story needs a bad guy). By all means, read it and form your
own opinion. As for me, I am looking forward to reading the second book,
Cold Light, which has just been released. The fact is, I have to know
what happens next and you never know—I might come to love these folks.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.