Sure, Aubrey Wheeler has split from her bad-news husband and is trying desperately to corral a rebellious teenage son, but now she's got a bigger problem. A solar storm has knocked out power worldwide, and she's hustling to protect her neighborhood even as her estranged brother, a wealth-ridden Silicon Valley CEO, hunkers down in his fancy desert bunker. With a 200,000-copy first printing; from prolific screenwriter Koepp, also author of Cold Storage.

Cold Storage (2019), the first novel by screenwriter Koepp (Jurassic Park, Panic Room, among many), was a terrific thriller. Rather than simply following it up with a sequel, Koepp has completely shifted gears for his second novel. Aurora is a variation on apocalyptic fiction: a solar storm causes the power to go out in most of the world. In the city of Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is raising a teenage son who is not her own, battling with her ex-husband, and, now, trying to find a way to survive until the lights come back on (which, according to the experts, could be at least six months). Her estranged brother, the ridiculously rich Thom Banning, has spent years making preparations for an apocalypse, but now that the world really has come to a (temporary) end, he finds that his grand scheme for survival was wildly ill-conceived. Circumstances bring Aubrey and Thom back together, but there are issues to resolve in this new and dangerous world. Like Cold Storage, this tale is solidly anchored in real-world science, making it both plausible and chilling.

In this chilling scientific thriller from Koepp (Cold Storage), astronomers learn that "a giant cloud of solar plasma drenched with magnetic field lines" will strike Earth in less than a day and cause a devastating global blackout. Since the U.S. government doesn't control power plants, it's up to the states to shut down transformers to significantly mitigate the impact of the solar strike. Inevitably, the governors resist such a move, and the country is plunged into cascading chaos. With cell towers and electrical lines down, the president can't even communicate with anyone not within shouting distance. The ordinary people who must deal with the extraordinary circumstances include Aubrey Wheeler, of Aurora, Ill., whose brutish ex-husband abandoned a teenage son from a previous relationship for her to parent; 88-year-old retired college professor Norman Levy, a neighbor of Wheeler's; and Patrick Brady, the loyal assistant to a billionaire with some eccentric ideas for surviving the blackout. Koepp's imaginative plotting will keep readers turning the pages to learn the fates of characters they readily become invested in. Michael Crichton fans will hope for more from Koepp. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (June)

A billionaire and a suburban family struggle to survive when power goes out around the globe. This brisk thriller is set a few years in the future, after the world has been through the coronavirus pandemic and thinks it's learned how to handle disaster. It hasn't. A coronal mass ejection on the sun isn't an unusual event, but this time one sends out a massive cloud of solar plasma aimed straight at Earth. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration see it coming and know it will fry electrical grids around the globe. Their attempts to shut down systems to protect them are shrugged off by anti-science politicians, and the world goes dark. No electricity means no internet, no phones, no TV or radio, no supply chain--"Everything from a nuclear power plant to your coffeepot," one expert says. "If it's connected to the grid and turned on, it will blow." Thom Banning is prepared for the catastrophe. A tech billionaire, he's purchased a disused missile silo and spent $30 million to convert it to a secure underground bunker big enough to house a village--of Thom's choosing. He and his family, plus selected employees, evacuate to the bunker and settle in, but things will not go exactly as Thom planned. Meanwhile, Aubrey Wheeler is not prepared at all. She's been busy trying to steer her conference business through the pandemic, avoid her creepy ex-husband, Rusty, and cope with Rusty's son, Scott. The boy is a typically surly teenager but wisely chose to stay with his stepmother when she and his father, who's addicted to just about everything you can be addicted to, divorced. When the power goes out in their Illinois suburb, all Aubrey has on her emergency shelf is 11 cans of black beans. Koepp, a successful screenwriter (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man), brings those skills to this novel, crafting carefully placed revelations about the characters' relationships and the bursts of violence in their increasingly chaotic world into an exciting and satisfying tale. Engaging characters deal with disaster in this swiftly paced, well-written thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.