It's been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone
supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex's relatives,
trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly
portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this trilogy. It's also been six
months of waiting for Alex's parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla
decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa
to find and bring back Alex's parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois.
But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with
life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining
communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves
of strength and determination to survive.