Into the Mist

The Real Housewives meets Robinson Crusoe in this fun apocalypse tour from bestseller Cast (House of Night). A sassy, somewhat stereotyped, and tight-knit band of teachers become stranded at a rural Oregon resort after bombs drop on the U.S. What kind of bombs and dropped by whom are questions left unanswered, but the resulting electromagnetic pulse knocks out some electronics. What works and what doesn’t feels more determined by narrative convenience than science: the lamps and the water pumps turn on, but the fridge doesn’t work and the cars won’t start. The bombs also release a green mist that “breaks” men, turning them to bloody jelly. Women, however, tend to survive—and some come away with surprising new abilities. Heightened intuition, for one, impels Stella Carver to urge her colleagues out of their refuge and onto the risky open road. Their goal is to “make a world where this kind of shit never happens again”; if snappy dialogue and proclamations of girl power are enough to win the day, they’ll succeed, but that question, too, is unresolved. The plot is loose at best, with enough obvious holes and hints of future developments that it really only makes sense as a first installment. It’s entertaining, but unfinished. Agent: Rebecca Scherer, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (July)