Zero Hour

Dark Waters, Book 1

De: Bruno Miller

Narrado por: Andrew Tell

The hardest thing and the right thing are often the same.

Spencer Hayes, along with his girlfriend, Kate, and their dog, Finn, enjoy a life most people only dream about. Living aboard their 31-foot sailboat, Restless, they make the most of all that paradise has to offer. But that changes in the blink of an eye when EMPs strike the east coast of the United States.

Spencer quickly finds himself struggling to survive as the once laid back little town of Marathon in the Florida Keys is thrust into chaos and destruction. To complicate matters further, Kate is out of town visiting her parents in Stuart, Florida when the nuclear attack disables the grid, leaving Spencer with some tough choices to make.

His prior military service gives Spencer an overwhelming sense of duty to his community. But the responsibility he feels to help his fellow man clashes with his desire to reunite with Kate in a world turned upside down.

As humanity unravels, desperation becomes the new normal, adding to the seemingly insurmountable odds he and Finn must overcome in order to survive. Spencer is forced to make decisions he may regret. Only time will tell if the hard thing was also the right thing.

©2023 Bruno Miller (P)2025 Bruno Miller

amazing story.

I love that the author uses the employees last that nukes do actually create as part of the story. listen to dark roads story as well great series.

good

loved it makes you realize how fast people go greedy and all for themselves interesting

slow

pretty slow. The author needs to learn that EMP doesn't happen with a low level nuclear detonation.

Best dog

The story had way to much time f Spencer’s what ifs an imagination wondering. Spencer is kinda a wimp!

Average EMP tale

Drags a bit. Not much action. Man comes back from excursion out on his boat at sea to find EMP left his Florida town a mess. Within 24 hours it’s hell, not sure that’s a true expectation. MC determine to head back out to sea and around to a town where his girlfriend is, but dawdles around before leaving checking on friends and helping people.

Brought back memories

He talked all about my dad’s ship and reminded me of so many good memories of being stationed in key west. Great read, onto book 2!

Good listen, not superlative

There's multiple reasons for me to rate Zero Hour favorably. Spencer and Finn make a good team and I enjoyed their relationship and interplay immediately. The author gives just enough details, and doesn't get bogged down. The dialogue is believable and profanity isn't overused, I mean Spencer IS a sailor. On that note, I enjoyed the bits and bites about sailing, navigation, fishing, and general nautical discussion. For that alone, I would want to hear book two.
I found the secondary and tertiary characters interesting and look forward to seeing if the author chooses to include any of them in future participation.
However, there were a few reasons that kept me from giving it five stars. The way Marathon degrades to Dante's Inferno almost immediately I guess I can get over. And in the plot summary, it states that Spencer wrestles with what he still perceives as his 'duty'. And there's at least a couple of his decisions that I simply think are utterly ridiculous, moral dilemma or not. I think it's a bit light on word count. The abundance of AR's is... forgivable I suppose. I guess the circles I travel in, they are not so popular.
Generally, the narrator gives a good performance but I guess there's always a discrepancy about pronunciation for a few words. I can blame it on regional dialects. He reads with just enough enthusiasm and doesn't go overboard.

plenty of action

The saving the girl part seemed a bit off track but it did add a human twist of course

Like the idea of dystopian escape by boat?

Me too! But despite that book cover you might love, I’m listening to chapter 13 in BOOK TWO (that’s the next book not this one) they have just now got it together and the glow plugs on the boat are being turned on. We shall see if it will be got time or 43 more chapters of carrot shaving hijinks. Ok captain stick in the mud time for you and your trusty hound to stop rinsing off the deck 100 yards away from the harbor and motor on out to logical safety. You can do this. Thankfully this was a free book or else no way ✌️.

The plot had potential but….

I like the plot that’s why I listened to all three books. But there were definitely times where I had to stop myself from hitting stop and switching to something else altogether.
The character , supposedly a Coast Guard member, has the survival skilsl of an earthworm. Makes the same mistake over and over multiple times and keeps saying to himself he should learn and not let his guard down.
In my opinion, either the character is an average person thrown into a situation who learns by making mistakes , Or an experienced person that performs better than average. You can’t say someone’s from Coast Guard with training who then doesn’t know anything about anything. It was frustrating.

Also, the story was unnecessarily long . It felt like my school days when I had to write a 20 page paper and had only four pages of material ; using every adverb or adjective that I could think of to extend sentences. And then repeat the most obvious things Over and over and over to get page count.

I don’t know How many times the main character mentioned that he can’t let this event or that event get between him and the thing he’s searching for. I get it, you have a goal.
Unless the book was written for 10-year-olds that every single interaction and event and situation has to be explained.

I’ve definitely had some audiobooks on Audible that I just turned off and deleted After an hour of listening. This book is not one of them. I listened to all in the series. But definitely not as silky smooth as the pros.