PAST THIS POINT by Nicole Marby – Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Nicole Mabry draws from her own life, the impact of a deadly snowstorm, and the subsequent shutting down of the subways to create Past This Point, an action-packed dystopian novel featuring a strong woman who seeks a way out of a world gone mad.

Karis Hylen is working in New York City a massive snowstorm shuts down the city. A total quarantine of the city becomes quarantine for half of the nation.

In the introductory chapters of this daily progression, the reader will quickly realize that Karis, with her Latino family heritage, is nobody’s fool. Karis has a strong will. Her seemingly only chance to beat quarantine’s eerie hold and join her unaffected family in California is thwarted when she isn’t allowed to take her beloved dog Zeke on the flight. She switches into survivalist mode, searching empty apartments around her for food. Along the way, she befriends a mother with two little girls still living there. They all help and bolster one another for a while – until Karis’s luck turns and she becomes even more determined to get out of the horror-infused city.

After battling several ill-intentioned men, she finds one man of character, an Englishman named Ollie, who shares her vision of escape.

Karis has always been unlucky in her relationships with men, but they both know that to remain in New York City will be their death. Luckily Zeke, who has almost developed the ability to speak in human language, approves of Ollie, who supports Zeke when the dog adopts a starving kitten they find.

Frequent phone calls with Karis’s family sustain the couple’s hopes as they face minute-by-minute struggles to get out of the now sealed-off eastern half of the US and through the medical and military checkpoints on the border. These official strictures prove almost as life-threatening as the mysterious virus itself.

Mabry is new to the world of wordsmithing but proves herself up to the challenge.

Her profession in photography has garnered awards and attention, and her prose may draw similar kudos. Like Karis, she has lived in California and New York City and has a canine companion who accompanies her on photographic forays. Readers will yearn for more of her dynamic stories – and perhaps a sequel to the questions raised in this intriguing debut offering.

Past This Point by Nicole Marby won First Place in the 2019 CIBA Global Book Awards for High Stakes Thrillers.