Worst Case Scenario
Fiction
Little, Brown and Company
August 13, 2024
Advance Listener Copy
336
Free from publisher via NetGalley
When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.
The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.
In this heart-stopping thriller, ordinary people—power plant employees, firefighters, teachers, families, neighbors, and friends— are thrust into an extraordinary situation as they face the ultimate test of their lives. It will take the combined courage, ingenuity, and determination of a brave few to save not only their community and loved ones, but the fate of humanity at large.
My review:
I am in awe at this author's ability to have your heart pounding within the first few sentences of a book! This is the third book I've read by this flight attendant turned author, and they have all been stellar! While the first two took place primarily on an airplane, this one is more what happens after an airplane crashes....into a nuclear power plant!! Be sure to catch the author's note with how she came up with the story, fascinating look into airline pilot thoughts. This book was consumed in almost one sitting, I was that invested in what was going to happen. There were two plots going on simultaneously, one at the scene of the crash, and the other at a bridge where one of the plane's wings landed upon impact. Both were super compelling and fast paced. I learned something about nuclear power plants, but it wasn't written in a way that was text book-y. If it sounds like this is only a plot driven story, the characters were so well done! There are quite a lot of them, but you will definitely know who is who by the end. Not only did I experience the pulse pounding emotion, but I also cried at a point toward the end (if you read it, you'll know!).
If you are looking for an edge of your seat, adrenaline inducing thriller, that also has great characters and people who rally during the worst of scenarios (see what I did there?), pick this one up. At this point I'm ready to read the phone book if it's written by this author!
I listened to this book on audio, and I highly recommend that format if that is a format you like. The narrator was phenomenal! He added drama and emotion to the scenes and characters, and I will seek out other books he narrates in the future.
