Submitted by Ryan Scott
Entering autumn with book two in the post-apocalyptic The Path That Takes Us Home series seems like a suitable way to end a summer filled with war, instability, and wildfires. Where The Ashes Find Their Grave has just been published by Durham-based Chicken House Press, and follows last year’s When The Trees All Burned, picking up just moments after the dramatic conclusion of that engaging book.
Author Alanna Rusnak joins the books together well, reminding us of who is who and where we are in the story without having to stall the plot to do so. With little effort she drops us right back into the characters’ varied points of view and experiences. New characters and POVs are added along the way, and the narrative follows a non-linear progression, alternating from the present post-apocalyptic storyline to flashbacks set days, weeks, or months before.
I know there are readers who dislike this form of storytelling. They feel it makes the plot disjointed and confusing. Though Rusnak handles it well by including clear headers so we know where we are in space and time, anyone already biased against this style – let alone if they disliked it in the first book – will be turned off by it here.
Another absent element that gave drive to the first book was the sense of impending doom that collectively hung over all the characters as we awaited a disaster that promised to drastically alter or outright end their lives. Instead, this type of tension is revealed through more personal sequences as the characters learn to survive (or not) in their sequestered environments. Desperation and a longing for a now-extinct lifestyle brings about desires for control and food and sex, often leading to dramatic clashes. Crime and punishment are carried out in ways unique to the demands of the new worlds the characters are forced to inhabit.
As for the characters themselves, we are reunited with some of the names who propelled us through the first book, their lives – past and present – unfolding further here. Aiya, now a new mother, must adapt to the challenges of raising a baby in an artificial biome as the earth outside smoulders. She must also struggle to disconnect with the emotions and abuse experienced in her old life, and try to develop relationships in her new one. Rajiv Montgomery Noah, the billionaire tech guru who built an ark in the form of a massive dome outside of Thunder Bay, must steer his select survivors through further calamities, all while battling a crisis of his own.
One of the most exciting new perspectives comes from the handful of astronauts surviving aboard the ISS. They have a literal window over the entirety of earth as catastrophe strikes and are left to face an unimaginable fate stuck aboard a lifeboat with no chance for rescue.
Whoever and wherever they are, the characters always feel very raw and real. Whether finding comfort in humour or shrinking before fear, they each offer a different and personal reaction to the devastation and change occurring around them, no matter what the scale.
In the end, the book leaves us with unresolved questions, lives, and hopes – a perfect position to be in with two further books in the series yet to come.
Alanna Rusnak’s Where The Ashes Find Their Grave as well as When The Trees All Burned are available at www.chickenhousepress.com and at the Book Hive at 84 Sykes St. N. You can meet Alanna in the shop this Saturday, September 26 between 1 and 3 p.m. and get your copies signed.
