Burning Skies

A Hell Divers Prequel, Part II

By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith

From the New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sansbury Smith comes the second installment of the edge-of-your-seat prequel to the popular Hell Divers series.

The bombs were just the beginning of the nightmare …

On the ground, Cecil Pepper and his wife race against radioactive death, searching frantically for a bunker that might spare them from the inferno raining from above. But even if they can find shelter, an inescapable realization dawns: Walls of concrete and steel may shield them from fallout, but not from the horrors evolving in this new, forsaken world.

High above the radioactive surface, Santiago Rodriguez and his family have secured passage aboard the airship Persephone. Their relief is short-lived, however, as massive, violent storms form across the planet. But even if they escape nature’s fury, the sky offers no permanent refuge. As supplies dwindle, an impossible choice emerges: Slowly starve in the clouds, or risk salvaging in the razed wasteland below. To survive, brave soldiers must descend into the irradiated hell that was once Earth, diving through toxic skies to scavenge the ruins of civilization—becoming the first of a new breed of warriors known as the Hell Divers.

©2026 Nicholas Sansbury Smith (P)2026 Blackstone Publishing