Showing results by author "Lou Cadle" in All Categories

Pre-med student Coral is on vacation in Idaho when something terrible happens. The black cloud is followed by a wildfire and searing heat that lasts for days. She survives deep in a cave but emerges days later to find the world transformed, with blackened trees, an ash-filled sky, and no living creatures stirring - except for her. So begins her desperate journey to find water and food and other survivors...and the answer to the mystery of what happened.

It's the end of oil. We knew it was coming one day. But it happened so fast! Devlin Quinn turns 16 the same week that a battle in a distant war shuts off the flow of imported petroleum to the US. Gas runs low, then runs out, and soon the highways are empty. And then it gets very serious. The grocery store shelves are empty, and people become desperate for food. Dev is trained to fight-his father made sure of that-but is he trained enough? Smart enough? Tough enough? He is about to find out when people desperate for food flee the burning cities and attack....

Twenty-five years after the end of oil, Dev hears the shocking sound of hoofbeats on the road. No one has been up the road in six years, and now the last people he wants to see have arrived: a dozen armed men on horseback, promising a return of government and order. Dev doesn't believe their promises, and they come with too terrible a cost, starting with a tax on food that he cannot afford. He and the neighbors are barely scraping by. He had feared that drought and heat would slowly kill them all, but now the danger is much more immediate.

Ten years after the end of oil, no one has the bullets left to shoot at Dev and Sierra or their neighbors. But the climate seems determined to kill them with drought and relentless heat. As the irreplaceable technologies of the civilized world break down, survival becomes more and more of a struggle - and more of an imperative, as they have a daughter, Zoe, to care for now. When a battered family escaping a terrible situation moves in down the hill at their grain farm, the neighbors have a tough choice to make.

The enemies in nearby Payson have attacked. Now they'll suffer retaliation. Sierra's tactical brainstorm leads the neighborhoods into a surprise attack. Sierra, Dev, and the others need to liberate those under the control of the brutal invaders from the valley to guarantee their own safety. The numbers are against them. The stakes are high. And it has to be done now.

Dev and Sierra - who have come of age emotionally and as warriors - head down to Payson to spy on the men who have taken over the town. What they find there horrifies them. And Sierra's aggressive streak leads them into a confrontation with these invaders, one that will put everyone's lives at risk.