A Power Grid Failure that Creates Chaos - an Editorial Review of "The Cold Winter"

Book Blurb:

The Niagara Falls grid is down.

A snowstorm traps the unprepared.

A cold winter lies ahead.

The Northeast corner of the US goes dark. The rest of the country has power, and desperate travelers jam the roads to get there. They can’t make it. Millions of people are displaced as a massive snowstorm descends.

The Vesper family lives in a small town in central Ohio. They’ve prepped, but not enough. They vow to do the right thing for any person in need. The radio promises that everything will be back to normal soon. Instead, it’s a cold, brutal winter.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/bu3zGy

Author Bio:

I started seriously writing back in 2012 when my concerns of a power grid failure began to creep into my mind. My concerns festered into a storyline that continued to bug me until I got it on paper. I’ve heard that good writing is like sharing a good secret. It took five years of honing my craft to get the first book out, but it has been fun sharing this secret.

I have always loved to write, even as a kid in elementary school. I still have my first book about a three-headed snake, complete with a Crayola cover stapled together. Several short stories were written in high school and college, but no attempts to be published. College courses in creative writing were taken at Ohio State, but again, another path was chosen. A business degree in Computer Science and Accounting was selected as a more promising road to success. My original career path was in accounting and included the CPA exam, of which I passed two of the four parts. However, I soon found that I was too creative to be an accountant, and I moved to computer programming. My rationale was that creative accountants usually ended up in prison.

My computer consulting career has allowed me to be creative, but I have more passion for my artistic pursuits. During the housing boom leading up to 2008, I did a lot of woodworking and restoring antique furniture. The quiet times of working on the pieces were great; I enjoy my solitude. But the initial interaction with the customer to make the sale was a fun process as well. This is why I do so many book signings in person. I enjoy the conversations and the feedback I receive from these events. I am certainly not an introvert who wants to stay locked away in my writing laboratory weaving my tales!

My other passion is sailing. I have worked on a sailing charter boat in Key West and taken some sailing classes to develop my skills. I have a sailboat in Ohio, and I spend more time aboard each season. A blue water sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico is my next goal, and it feels to be not far away. I pine for the day that writing and sailing consume my life, and hopefully I can take a few readers along in my stories!

Editorial Review:

Title: The Cold Winter: The Battle of Ohio River

Author: Chris Underwood

Rating: 4.0 Stars

“The Cold Winter: Battle on the Ohio River” by Chris A. Underwood drops readers into a bleak and chaotic America, where a snowstorm crashes over the country and a blackout shuts down life during an election year. What begins as a simple setup turns into something larger, a story about people hanging on when the world itself seems to be falling apart. It is about fear, survival, and the strange resilience that people can summon when they have no other choice.

The book mainly follows Thom Vesper and his wife Toni as they try to navigate the collapse. The power grid is gone, stores are empty, panic spreads. Thom himself is battling his own demons- addiction, regret, and the weight of responsibility that he doesn’t feel strong enough to carry. Their journey throws them together with other characters, some odd, some dangerous, and the way their lives cross makes up the backbone of the plot. A virus spreads through the country, making everything worse, and survival becomes both a physical and emotional challenge. Beneath all this chaos, though, the story is just as much about holding on to family, finding trust, and searching for hope when almost nothing seems left.

“But Thom was far from his freefall withdrawal of the anti-depressant

Xanax a couple of months ago. The Happy Place was needed to keep

His sanity, or at least a portion of it. He believed that the loss of his leg

Had killed the happy place, but at this moment, he realized that was a

Lie. It was the OxyContin from the recovery and his latest

Unsuccessful attempt to break free from the painkiller. The killer of

His dream, his drive, and his relationships. Thom shook out of his

Marina parking lot vision when he realized he was going to rural Ohio

And West Virginia.”

This phrase is direct and opens a window into Thom’s struggle. What he thought was gone forever—his ability to feel happiness—is suddenly challenged. The style is direct, Almost unpolished, which makes sense for a survival story and the sentences are clear and straightforward, with medical names (Xanax, OxyContin) dropped in without explanation. That gives it a raw, factual edge, like someone laying out their troubles without trying to dress them up.

“Thom didn’t need to be strong for himself. He couldn’t be strong for himself. He was broken. But for his son’s eyes and what they see and what they will remember, he could do it. He must do it. Or die trying. There

Were no other options.”

Here the repetition of the word “strong” hammers the point. Thom feels crushed and weak, but when it comes to his son, he finds another gear. The lines are almost choppy, each thought breaking into the next, but that rhythm matches the urgency of his emotional state. It feels raw, which makes it hit harder.

The third excerpt is different. It shifts into action:

“Yeah buddy!” Dominic whooped and hollered at the thought of being featured in a terrorist most wanted deck like the one used for Saddam Hussein back in ’03.

“Another one coming straight up our six!” Kirksey pointed out the

Window. “Dropping behind the barn,” Dominic moved the controls and felt

Weightlessness as the craft dropped. “Might give the trees a haircut in

The doing!””

Suddenly we are in the middle of danger. The clipped language, the quick shouts, the sense of movement- it all creates tension. It reads fast, like a camera panning, and for a moment the book becomes pure adrenaline.

What stands out is how Underwood moves between these different situations. Some lines are reflective, letting us into Thom’s mind while others are emotional, almost testimonial, like someone confessing in the middle of a storm. Then the narrative cuts sharp into action, using short bursts to raise the pulse. That variety keeps the reader alert. The writing itself doesn’t try to be fancy. The sentences are usually clear and straight, sometimes repeated in a way that feels intentional, almost like someone talking out loud to themselves. At times it reads like survival testimony, with a mix of plain statements and sudden emotional breaks. That plainness works because the story is already dramatic.

Overall, “The Cold Winter: Battle on the Ohio River” is both an action story and a reflection on endurance. Underwood gives us characters who are scarred, flawed, but Still fighting for something bigger than themselves. His intelligent blend of suspense, family struggle, and social collapse makes it heavily gripping, and the different tones keep it alive throughout. It’s a story about survival, yes, but also about how people find strength they didn’t know they had.

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