The Dust of Dawn

The Dust Series, Book 1

By: Eloise J. Knapp

Narrated by: Andrew B. Wehrlen

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Zabat's Comet promises a stunning astronomical display as it narrowly passes our planet. Then a solar flare nudges it hurtling toward Earth. Humanity crumbles during the countdown to doomsday.

But Zabat is more than just a comet. The impact brings not swift extinction but a massive cloud of dust that appears to have a mind of its own. A sinister intelligence. A force that threatens to change what's left of humanity.

Jack, Colleen, Lara, and Dan survived the violent chaos of the countdown. They survived the threat of extinction. Now, they're about to find out that after doomsday, there are horrors even worse than death.

"The Dust of Dawn is a suffocating thriller that will keep you turning the pages and wondering what's going to happen next. An apocalypse unlike any I’ve read." (Nicholas Sansbury Smith, USA Today best-selling author of the Hell Divers series)

“Eloise Knapp once again shows her ability to look at the most overused ideas with sharp, fresh eyes and deliver amazing stories. Eerie and thought provoking in a way few post-apocalyptic thrillers manage. A wonderfully disturbing book.” (Peter Clines, NYT best-selling author of Paradox Bound and Dead Moon)

©2018 Eloise J. Knapp (P)2019 Eloise J. Knapp

An Original Story with Real Characters

I really enjoyed the story. Definitely an original idea that kept me wanting to know more. Looking forward to the story of what comes next. The characters where real. Meaning that the had flaws and had genuine emotions. Enjoyed the narrator alot. He has a very unique voice and can portray male/female characters rather well. Highly recommend.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Suspenseful and Interesting..But Explicit At Times

First things first: I was given this audiobook for free in exchange for my honest review.

In terms of story, I thought this novel expertly portrayed a vivid and at time frightening depiction of end-of-the-world events. You begin the novel with several different characters, each with their own interesting backstories that really enrich the storyline. The author does a great job of representing the views and psychologies of a wide range of characters and intermingling their stories within the timeline.

Also, kudos to the narrator, who did a great job of giving voice to each character in this novel and adding to the suspense and thrill of it. From beginning to end, he made this an enjoyable listen.

However, I do feel like I have to put a trigger warning on this review. This novel does deal with themes of child abuse, domestic abuse, and drug abuse, and at times it gets eerily descriptive. There were a few moments where I had to put it down and walk away. If that kind of thing upsets you, then this book isn't for you.

Interesting take

Not about survival really, more about an alien invasion and how the characters react. I’m more into books where characters react and then survive a world ending event.

Not the ordinary apocalypse

I received this book for free, in exchange for an unbiased review.

A comet is heading for earth and with only 3 months warning, chaos ensues.

This is a dual story of the apocalypse and not, told at once. Apocalypse, because everything at ground zero is about as bad as you can get, and not apocalypse, because as the rest of the world is not destroyed. While society continues to break down at ground zero and people are dying from hunger, other people and a mysterious disease, scientists are studying the events and trying to figure out what has happened and why the earth survived.

This is a different concept, that is seldom explored. What would you do if you thought it would all be over tomorrow? And what if it didn't end?

The story is definitely interesting, and I found myself always wondering what would happen next. Suspenseful, without being too much so. Dark at times, but with a hopefulness of better things.

As outlined in chapter 1, one of the main characters' daughter was murdered. This turns out to be a major driving force for this character, and I couldn't be happier. I am frankly tired of protagonist fathers, who focus on their spouse and not their children. Usually, they cant wait to see their spouse, fight to get home to them, struggle to save them, give their lives for them...only to also have kids who either have few to no lines, and provide none of the motivation for the character. I was therefore encouraged to find that Jack's story was driven almost entirely by his daughters murder.

The voice acting was good, although, there were some times when a line was delivered in opposition to the description to it. Like delivering a flat read line, followed by "he screamed". It wasn't often, but it is something the voice director should have caught.

All in all, a fine book, with only a few problems (which are spoiler filled and I will outline below). Definitely worth checking out, and a fine opening to a series.


***Major Spoilers***

My main complaints about this book are that in an area of millions, interconnected people are thrown together, and that the end poses more questions than answers.

So, in the beginning, Jack hunts down his daughters killer who tells him about the real killer. We then have jack meet up with 2 other main characters. A therapist and a monster. On the flip side, his ex wife and new family head to a FEMA shelter.Jack then spends the rest of the book in a slow journey to get to the FEMA camp is ex is at, while the therapist finds out the monster is Jacks daughters' killer. Jack gets to the FEMA shelter only to be in mind contact with his ex wife's daughter. With all the connections to Jack, I was surprised that the therapist didn't turn out to be Jacks ex wife's therapist.

There is such a struggle to make everyone in the story interconnected that it just starts to become unrealistic. An area of around 7800 sq miles, and we cant get away from Jack`s connections.

The other problem is that the story doesn`t end with the book. I assume when the publisher bought the book, they bought a series. Because book 1 ends with the story unfinished, to be presumably, carried on in book 2,3,etc.

Personally I feel this is lazy. A book should end with the end of 1 story, then pick up book 2 at the beginning of story 2. They can be intertwined, a continuation, but there should be a clear ending. But that is my personal preference, I assume cliffhanger endings are popular because so many books and movies are ended with them.

Nice job Eloise Knapp! So Enjoyable!!

You did a great job on this book EK! I thoroughly enjoyed it. You have a fan. I downloaded the second novel before I was done with this one.

My only kind of weird criticism isn’t with the writing At All. The narration at 1X was so clipped that I had to slow down that roll to 0.9X. Ha! It only lengthened my enjoyment time!

I will definitely download more of this author’s work.

Dust of Dawn 1

It didn't catch my imagination like I thought it would.It was good,not great. Angew B Wehrlen was a fine narrator. I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.

alien invasion

very nice post-apocalyptic story one of those books that you could see as a potential movie on Marvel it was very well written and the narrator was good
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Fresh change in apocalypse storytelling

I must admit that I was a little hesitant to listen to this book. It didn’t seem to be my type of apocalyptic book. Thank god I gave it a chance because Ms. Knapp has a new fan. She gives a refreshing take on society when SHTF. I highly recommend giving this story a shot.

Enjoyable, but didn't give me the buzz I expected

I enjoyed this story, thought it was very well narrated by Andrew Wehrlen, but it didn't evoke strong emotions in me as I progressed through it.

The book is well written and I related to a number of the characters, but at the end found that the one character that appeared least seems to be the key to the second installment, which makes me wonder how some of the initial characters will carry through.

Obviously an interesting take on the alien invasion story and if I see the second installment at a reasonable price, would definitely purchase it.

I want to thank the author/narrator/publisher for providing me this book in return for this unbiased review.

Liked the story

Overall I enjoyed this story. I like the way the author takes a worldwide event and takes it down to a regional area and focuses the story in that area. Knapp does a very good job in working the characters and tying them together thru different tragedies.

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."