The follow-up series concerns itself largely with the attempts of society and the protagonist to regain a normal level of functioning in the face of the psychological damage sustained during the war.

Few parts of the war outside Ellie's immediate perspective are covered; the reader is not informed exactly how much of the country is under enemy control, though a radio broadcast early in the series confirms that several major coastal cities and much of the inland area have been seized by the invading forces.

Tomorrow, When the War Began and its sequels are one of the most popular and critically acclaimed series of novels aimed at young readers in Australian literary history.

After the harbour raid, the surviving members of the group are eventually captured and placed in a maximum security prison in the nearby city of Stratton.

Alone behind enemy lines once more, the group decides to attack the airfield themselves but a combination of poor planning and bad luck causes them to fail, but they manage to return to Hell.

They discover that the war is entering its final days and that groups of partisans like themselves are being asked to cause as much chaos behind enemy lines as possible while New Zealand and its allies launch an all-out offensive.

She escapes and is reunited with her mother whom she stays with until news breaks that the war is over – Australia signs a peace treaty with the occupying power, resulting in the formation of a new nation on the continent for the invading forces and settlers.

In his book John Marsden: Darkness, Shadow, and Light John Noell Moore, associate professor of English at the College of William & Mary, identifies several significant themes of the series; the transition from innocence to experience; the power of the Australian landscape; understanding the past as a way of dealing with the present and preparing for the future; and writing and storytelling and how they shape identity.

[3] The transition from innocence to experience is shown in transformations in Ellie's thinking and her changing notions towards leadership and courage as the series progresses.

He felt that the popular media's view of the average young person as "illiterate, drug crazed, suicidal, alcoholic, criminal, promiscuous, a dole bludger, or all of the above" was wrong.

To do this Marsden looked to the authors he had read most avidly as a teenager, thriller writers such as Ian Fleming, Desmond Bagley, John Buchan, Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean.

He sought to emulate their approaches to timing, pacing and building tension and suspense and combine them with "the new teenage genres, where feelings, relationships and character development were all-important.

[9] Marsden states that while he didn't intentionally set out to emulate Peter and Co when he wrote Tomorrow, When the War Began, he does see many of his memories of the novel reflected in his work.

He noticed that many of these students, who at home drove cars, ploughed fields, harvested crops, worked as shearers and more, had trouble adjusting to an environment where they "were not trusted to change a light globe or put a Band-Aid on a cut".

[4] When asked why young people related to the characters in his books, Ellie in particular, Marsden speculated that, like himself, they found their strength and self-reliance inspirational.

[13] In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Rollercoaster website he explained what inspired him to highlight these virtues in his work: I've always been attracted to strong people in real life and in fiction.

So I think the idea of people overcoming adversity by using their own resources was strongly imprinted in me by those books, because those guys had nothing except their own strength and their own mind power.

[15] The Horn Book Magazine found the series "riveting" and said "thoughtful explorations of the nature of fear, bravery and violence add depth and balance to the edge-of-the-seat-action and intense first person narration".

[17] He praised Marsden's depictions of combat stress and action sequences, which he found reminiscent of John Buchan's work in The Thirty-Nine Steps.

[18] Viewpoint, Australia's major Young Adult fiction review journal, described the series as "a war story told with storytelling skills that Alistair MacLean used to display".

[19] Gregory Maguire of the New York Times found the series to be "intense" and "compulsively readable", but criticised the books for their episodic structures.

[27] In 2000, the Swedish Government arranged for the translation and distribution of Tomorrow, When the War Began to every child of appropriate age in the country because it was thought the book would be enjoyed by reluctant readers.

[28] Retrospectively, the series has been criticised for creating "a paranoid, white nationalist fantasy about a group of coloured people illegally invading" Australia.