Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe

This novel is the final book in the Fallen World trilogy, a series of novels set in Canada, about a plague devastated world and one girl's struggle to save it.

Kaelyn, Leo, Gav, Tobias, Justin and Anika have left Toronto and are on their way to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Kaelyn has a cooler containing vials of vaccine serum plus her father's notes on how to sequence the vaccine. She had hoped to find help in Toronto, but the city was in chaos, controlled by a man named Michael and his gang known as the Wardens. When the Wardens learned of Kaelyn's vaccine, they became determined to steal it. Now the six of them are running for their lives, hoping to reach Atlanta without another run-in with the Wardens.

The black SUV the fled Toronto in, becomes disabled with a flat tire, forcing them to stop at a home. During their stop, Gav wakens and becomes very ill, turning so violent they have to lock him in a room in the house they've taken shelter in. He dies overnight and the next morning Tobias' illness begins to manifest itself.

Meanwhile, Leo attempts to contact the CDC via radio, but only manages to receive a transmission from the Wardens who are listening in and warn them that they will take the vaccine. Nevertheless, Kae and her friends forge onward. When they run low on fuel, they stop at a home and Kae orders Leo to take all the gasoline stored in the owner's shed, even though she understands how this person will feel when he returns to find he's been robbed. Kae knows Leo wonders what kind of person she's becoming - someone who must push her conscience down to do the things required in a world where each must look out for themselves. When they attempt to contact the CDC again, they reach Dr. Sheryl Guzman. However, when they explain to her what they have and what they are trying to do, Guzman is skeptical. Kae proves to Guzman who she is and that it was her father, microbiologist Dr. Gordon Weber, who made the first vaccine. Guzman tells Kae that she must make it to Atlanta on her own but that when she gets into the city to contact her and she will help her make her way to the CDC. She also hints that things are not stable where the CDC is situated.

As it turns out the Wardens are hot on the group's trail. When Kae and the group go out to search for Tobias who has left the group, they discover the Wardens searching a house where they have parked the SUV. Barely managing to escape and leaving Tobias to his fate, they find themselves being hunted by Michael and the Wardens in helicopters. In what becomes a game of cat and mouse with Michael, Kae's group finds themselves in a race against time to make it to Atlanta. Complicating matters is that fact that both groups have indicated to Kae that their will be restrictions on who gets the vaccine once it's developed. Kae decides that she can have a say in they type of world that will exist once the plague has been brought under control. Can she devise a plane that ensures that regardless of whether Michael or the CDC makes the vaccine, no one will be denied treatment.

Worlds We Make is a fitting conclusion to Crewe's trilogy, but it is predictable and bland. The linear storyline throws no surprises and even the deaths of two of the characters are to be expected. Crewe wraps up her story in a tidy manner, ending on a positive note. There's nothing special here, except that readers of the previous two novels will simply want to know how it all ends.

There are no especially brilliant characters and even the villain, Michael, isn't a particularly bad person. Perhaps the deaths of too many characters in this trilogy ultimately worked against the storyline.

Book Details:
Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion   2014
280 pp.

The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe

The Lives We Lost is the second book in the post-apocalyptic Fallen Worlds trilogy by Canadian author, Megan Crewe. Kaelyn's friend, Leo, arrives unexpectedly on the island ferry with news about the mainland. To the shock of everyone, Leo tells those on the island that the virus had infected nearly everyone in both Canada, the United States, and most likely the world. Everyone is just as badly off as those on the island and help will not be forthcoming.

As the pandemic continues to rage, Kaelyn is now sharing a house with her boyfriend, Gav, her cousin Meredith, and Tessa and the recently returned Leo. When Kaelyn finds the keys to her father's research center, she decides to investigate to see if he had made any progress in developing a treatment for the virus. She finds the lab intact, her father's notes on his research into a cure, and several vials of vaccine. Apparently her father injected himself with vaccine three weeks before he was murdered, so Kaelyn feels certain that he must have found an antidote for the illness.

Kaelyn approaches Nell at the hospital, telling her about the find and asking her if she can make more. But Nell tells Kaelyn that she doesn't have the expertise. So Kaelyn decides that she must travel to the mainland to find someone who can replicate her father's work and produce more vaccine.

Initially Kaelyn and Gav decide they will make the journey to Ottawa in the hopes of locating scientists. But when the island is attacked by a military helicopter, they along with Leo, Meredith, and Tessa flee, with the help of a mainlander who came to warn them. This man, Tobias Rawls, is a young soldier from a nearby, secret military base on mainland Nova Scotia. Tobias has an armoured vehicle and he is asked to join them on their trek to Ottawa. After scavenging supplies from nearby stores, the group sets out.

As expected, things do not go as planned. Just as they enter New Brunswick, they run out of gas. When the group goes to look for fuel, their truck is vandalized and they must now walk on foot to Ottawa. Packing as much supplies as possible onto sleds they continue their journey on foot by following a major highway. However, those who vandalized them are not so eager to see them leave. Kaelyn's group narrowly escapes these people who are armed and driving a green van, by hiding in the forest by the highway. They continue onward traveling in the woods adjacent to the highway until they arrive at a hidden colony run by Hilary Cloutier. The colony was once an artist's colony for painters, writers, and composers to spend some time working on their craft. At the colony they meet a woman from Ottawa who tells them that traveling to the capital will be pointless because the government and scientists have abandoned the city.

So Kaelyn and her friends, Gav, Leo, and Tobias decide to travel to Toronto because of its numerous hospitals and the higher probability of locating researchers who might be able to make vaccine. Kaelyn decides to leave Meredith with Tessa who has opted to stay behind at the colony. But before they can set out, the unknown people in the van search the colony. Everyone hides, the vigilantes leave and the group manages to flee safely, although they have now unwittingly picked up Hilary's son, Justin, an unpredictable teenager who doesn't fully understand the dangers involved.

Kaelyn's goal now is to try to arrive safely in Toronto with the vaccine. But Kaelyn has an unknown group pursuing her and they seem to know that she has a vaccine. When they arrive in Toronto, Gav falls ill with the virus. Leo and Kaelyn learn that a man from British Columbia, Michael, has risen to take control of every area he passes through by offering food and medicine to those who will side with him. Known as Michael's Wardens, they are now in pursuit of Kaelyn. Can she outwit her pursuers and keep the vaccine from falling into the wrong hands?Can Kaelyn save both Gav and Tobias?

Crewe's novel is a decent second installment in the Fallen World series. Kaelyn and her group must deal with the winter weather, a lack of food, the ever present danger of contracting the virus, and the knowledge that they are being pursued by hostile survivors. However, for the most part, any hardships the group encounters seem to be easily remedied and any suspense created by their pursuers is not sustained. Instead the focus is on the main characters having to accept the fact that the lives they once had are gone forever - a point Kaelyn returns to again and again. They are hopeful that a vaccine might make their lives what they once were.

" 'I don't want our lives to stay like this, ' he said. 'I don't know if this vaccine is going to make a difference, but it could. It's the best chance we've got. I want to fight for that....' "

Kaelyn is presented as a strong female character who, although having doubts, generally seems completely determined to find someone who can replicate her father's vaccine even though she's not certain that the vaccine works. (There is a hint that it does because both Gav and Tobias were not innoculated and by the end of the novel, they are now sick. Tessa and Leo were and remain healthy.) Even when she witnesses the unintended murder of the three people tailing them, she seems to quickly recover. Even when Gav becomes desperately ill, Kaelyn still remains focused on her goal - to get the vaccines to someone who can make more of the same.

The basic storyline is somewhat predictable - we knew that both Gav and Tobias would likely sicken after Gav refuses the vaccine and Kaelyn doesn't offer Tobias an inoculation. And we know it's predictable that they would be pursued by someone wanting what they have. Having an army man who just happens to be a crack shot,  along for the adventure turns out to come in quite handy too. There's the hint of a love triangle, with Kaelyn loving Gav, but unable to admit to herself that she is attracted to her best friend, Leo who is put out when his girlfriend, Tessa, seems more interested in gardening than being with him. But it all makes for an enjoyable read and a suspenseful but hanging ending to the second novel.

Book Details:
The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion    2013
276 pp.