Into the Mist by Sharon G. Clark

Publisher:                   Regal Crest Enterprises

What would you do if you were in an explosion and when you woke up you were almost ninety years in the future?

Lieutenant Kasey Houston is tired of staying on the sidelines as a nurse in World War II so she sneaks off her ship at Okinawa in 1945 to participate in the battle; then she gets more action than she counted on when she's involved in an explosion.  Captain Andrea Knight lives in 2036 in a world vastly changed by a war in 2020.  Civil order has broken down and a gang called The Scepters, led by a character called Bad Billy, is trying to take over the world.  When Andrea finds Kasey lying in some rubble she first assumes Kasey is disoriented from a head wound, but she quickly begins to understand that something else has happened.  Kasey seems to know military procedures, so Andrea puts her in with her troops.  As they try to unravel a plot by Billy's forces and other traitors to disrupt a meeting of the United Presidents and overthrow the government, the women fall in love.  If they survive the danger around them, then they have to worry about what to do if Kasey is sent back to the past.

Into the Mist has a good story at the center of it.  Clark has to manufacture a world and situations that don't exist and then fit her characters into them.  People have developed new social customs and some have powers that aren't around today.  There's nothing like an apocalyptic world to bring out the best and worst in people.  The fact that it's set relatively close to the current time will have the reader wondering how much of the scenario could come true. 

Unfortunately, the book isn't executed very well.  There are numerous missing or misspelled words, plus large portions of the story seem to be missing and that gives the book an uneven pace.  Andrea and Kasey don't react to each other in a believable manner at first.  Andrea doesn't seem at all surprised to find someone from the future under a pile of rubble and Kasey has no problems at all adjusting to life eighty-six years in the future.  Anyone who was born in 1945 when Kasey supposedly disappeared is experiencing some difficulty today coping with the technology in 2011.  That Kasey would have no trouble with it at a later date, especially with no time to acclimate to the changes, is beyond probable.  There is very little character development in this story and the ending is rushed.

Into the Mist had potential, but it wasn't fulfilled.  It reads more like a first draft than a finished edition.  It can still be read for some entertainment, but the reader should be prepared to overlook a lot of problems.