From the moment you step into Kenzie’s world, you know that something isn’t quite right; the eerie quiet, the feeling that something is looming on the horizon that is impure and about to go boom right in the middle of the page is present from the first paragraph throughout this tale of a virulent strain of the flue striking people down with little incubation time and no warning.

Susanna Strom excels at building that dread into every page without having it overwhelm; in fact, there was a masterful weaving of hopeful moments and burgeoning romance with a very strong male lead that had me repeatedly dropping my guard only to get sucker punched right alongside the characters when the unpredictable nature of an apocalyptic virus ridden world would land a blow.

To be perfectly honest stories about viral plague are not my thing, even when we’re not in the midst of them in real life; to me there is nothing scarier in the world than the idea of people being taken out by viral buckshot even when they’re healthy and in their prime- and Strom’s virus is twisty in a way that I will leave as a surprise for when you read this book because fans of romantic suspense and horror should not miss this tightly written debut novel.

Suspenseful and gripping, ‘Pandemonium’ is bound to grab you by the hand and lead you down the winding road to it’s conclusion that will leave you asking the question every author wants their readers to ask; what happens next?

I can’t wait for book two.