Read This Book: Radio Silence by Alyssa Cole

No one knows what caused the blackout that took out all of the country’s major systems – cell service, electricity, water – only that, so far as anyone can tell, they’re not coming back on. And it turns out that civilization goes downhill pretty quick when no one can flush a toilet or turn on the lights. Which is how Arden and her roommate John ended up hiking cross country from Rochester, New York to his parents’ cabin near the Canadian border in search of food and safety.

But when they are attacked a few miles from the cabin, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe, no matter how remote. Gabriel, John’s older brother, comes to the rescue – sparking off an antagonistic attraction between him and Arden – and brings more bad news: their parents are missing. The only ones left in the cabin are Gabriel and their little sister Maggie. Now the four of them – Arden, John, Gabriel, and Maggie – are sharing the cabin, isolated not just geographically but by what seems to be an increasingly hostile world outside their four walls.

I loved this book. So much. I expected to like it because, again, genre mash-ups are my catnip. I did not expect to love this book with every fiber of my being. I did wish at times that it could have more suspenseful, more intense, with regards to the post-apocalyptic portion of the novel. But Radio Silence is primarily a romance novel, so the focus of the novel is on Arden and Gabriel’s sharp chemistry while the blackout serves more as an impetus for their love story, bringing them together and keeping them in close proximity to one another until their attraction has a chance to boil over. That being said, there is definitely still enough of a “threat of the unknown” to keep the tension high, so romantic suspense fans won’t be left wanting.