Book picks similar to
Exodus by Courtney McPhail


post-apocalyptic
apocalyptic
zombies
science-fiction

Primal Shift: Part 1


Griffin Hayes - 2013
    But a thousand motorists suddenly abandon their cars on the Golden Gate Bridge and leap to their deaths in a roiling bay. Jets packed with families rain down from the skies above Salt Lake City International Airport, dotting the landscape with orange fireballs. Worse yet, New York City police launch a murderous rampage against those they swore to protect and serve. Law and order across the globe collapses in less than five minutes, plunging humanity into chaos.Something is affecting our minds, our sanity. Could it be a terrorist attack? The ultimate virus? Or an experiment gone horribly wrong?A handful of survivors claws its way out of the ashes of the old world, strangely unaffected by The Shift. Among them, a frantic mother desperate to find her son. A sailor hunting a soulless killer. A former CEO willing to kill for power over this new, feral wasteland.Together, they'll battle both the hordes of bloodthirsty cannibals who used to be their own families and neighbors, and a dark figure who commands these legions with his every twisted whim.Someone somewhere must know what happened, where to find safety. And whether those eerie lights shimmering in the skies overhead are an omen of something far worse than even this bleak living hell.

The Oasis of Filth - Part 1


Keith Soares - 2013
    The story is told by a doctor in suburban Maryland who is on the front lines of discovering the disease, but finds himself quickly overwhelmed by a world that collapses into paranoia, fear and loneliness. He makes an unexpected connection to Rosa, a beautiful woman half his age with an inquisitive nature and inherent sense of hope and resourcefulness, and together they go on a sprawling journey across the eastern United States, finding danger, hope, and possibly even the salvation of the world.

Infected Waters: A Titanic Disaster


Alathia Morgan - 2016
    But does that mean it’s the truth? Nora Ryan couldn’t believe her luck when she’s appointed as the onboard nurse for White Star Line’s pride and joy. It was the biggest cruise liner in the world and she was being paid to go on the maiden voyage. Nora was prepared to treat common illnesses, but what she found aboard was something she’d never witnessed before.A virus unlike anything her schooling had taught her had found its way aboard the cruise liner. One passenger had already succumbed, dozens more were infected as the virus rapidly spread through the ship. Nora would have thought death would bring peace to the ill, little did she know they would wake with a blood thirst threatening the few remaining survivors. It’s a race against the clock to find a way to stop the virus from spreading. She turns to Gill, a stowaway, to help her find a solution. But Nora and Gill soon realize a solution wasn’t the goal, survival was. A Titanic Disaster is the second installment in the Infected Histories Series. Alathia Morgan makes you look more closely at the facts you have learned and make you question everything and everyone. Is history a true reflection of the past, or merely palatable fiction at its best? You decide.

Hunger


Keith Taylor - 2016
    The world looked on as millions of innocent lives were snuffed out in a matter of hours. Millions of men, women and children slaughtered without mercy, killed by a violent mob that attacked without reason, motive or warning.Tom Freeman saw the aftermath. He reported on the tragedy and looked into the eyes of the sole survivor, and what he saw looking back sent him running home to the United States. Back to safety. Back to a place where the world makes sense, and the putrid stink of the dead doesn't haunt his nightmares.He didn't run quickly enough. They're coming.Remain indoors...Gather supplies...Find a weapon...They're here. HUNGER is the opening book of the terrifying post-apocalyptic LAST MAN STANDING series.

The Lazarus Impact


Vincent Todarello - 2013
    The US power grid fails due to the impact of a large meteorite. The dust plume causes severe illness and death as it blows east across America. As a result the government quarantines the entire northeast. Military personnel wearing gas masks patrol the edges of the affected area, preventing anyone from crossing. But when the dead start coming back to life and eating the living, the US braces itself for a full-on zombie outbreak that no military barricade can keep contained.The Lazarus Impact is a fast paced, high intensity, peri-apocalyptic zombie action thriller that traces the stories of eight unique and diverse characters as they travel through the madness, trying to head west past the quarantine to safety... or so they think. Wolf, an extreme survivalist television personality, is the first one on the scene when the meteors hit, filming the damage. Dr. Vogel, a former infectious disease lab rat turned physician, is on a mission to get to the CDC to give them samples of what he thinks might be the basis for a cure. Willy, an old, hardened, Vietnam War veteran suffering from PTSD, witnesses the outbreak as it ramps up in intensity at the hospital where he works as a janitor. Sheryl, a suburban housewife, learns of the dust when she gets a call from a neighbor that her boys are sick on the football field. Marcus, a reformed prison inmate with a violent past, escapes with a band of unscrupulous marauders during a riot. Michael and Amy, a bickering couple from NYC, struggle to get out of Manhattan despite the bridges and tunnels being barricaded and locked down. And Brandon, an awkward teenager with an obsession for horror comics and video games, hides out in his parents Cold War era bunker until he runs out of fuel.When their paths intersect they must help and rely on each other for survival. The plan is to move west, past the quarantine, and make their way to a secure compound where people have been preparing for doomsday for decades. But the nightmares they face on the way west are only a shadow of the dangers they may encounter on the other side of the quarantine, where the American people have taken up arms to defend their new but porous borders. Will any survive the journey? Is it even worth it?

Unprepared


Tom Abrahams - 2020
    And Mike Crenshaw is totally unprepared. From the world of The Traveler Series comes a new cast of characters, new obstacles, and the same devastating, world-altering virus which plunges society into the depth of a dystopian hell.UNPREPARED begins in the hours before The Scourge takes hold.  As if ripped from today's headlines, governments react too slowly and the disease spreads too fast.  Quarantines don't work.  Infrastructure fails.  People die.Follow Mike and his friends as they try to survive this new landscape and find out how the world in which The Traveler Series was set came into being.  It's a thrill ride that will keep you up at night with the lights on and the doors locked.

Mutation


Nerys Wheatley - 2015
    Infected. Turned.Cured.Alex survived the virus that turns its victims into mindless flesh-eaters, but it left him mutated, with super-human strength and white eyes.Feared and despised.The world has lived with the virus for thirteen years, but now a new strain is turning thousands into ravenous monsters, faster than ever before.And Alex is trapped right in the middle of the outbreak.Forced into a precarious alliance with a man who hates people like him, he must fight his way across a city overrun with hordes of eaters to discover the truth about this new strain.Before the uninfected become too outnumbered to survive.Alex may be their only hope.Because the best person to fight the monsters is someone who’s been one.

After Everyone Died


Sean Patrick Little - 2016
    It struck hard and fast, wiping out the whole of humanity. For reasons he can't understand, Twist is left alive to face the apocalypse alone. Well, not entirely alone-his neighbor's gassy Labrador, Rowdy, tags along for the ride. Twist and Rowdy are forced to face the new post-apocalypse world together, holing up in the local library and scavenging supplies to outlast a long, cold Wisconsin winter. Twist has to adapt to the emptiness and isolation of an empty world and come to terms with the fact that he might be the only person left alive in the entire world. In a world where boredom and loneliness are the greatest threat, Twist must survive, keeping the hope that others might be alive, as well.

Z-Burbia


Jake Bible - 2013
    Which is good since the zombie apocalypse has come to Western North Carolina and really put suburban living to the test! Surrounded by a sea of the undead, the residents of Whispering Pines have adapted their bucolic life of block parties to scavenging parties, common area groundskeeping to immediate area warfare, neighborhood beautification to neighborhood fortification. But, even in the best of times, suburban living has its ups and downs what with nosy neighbors, a strict Home Owners’ Association, and a property management company that believes the words “strict interpretation” are holy words when applied to the HOA covenants. Now with the zombie apocalypse upon them even those innocuous, daily irritations quickly become dramatic struggles for personal identity, family security, and straight up survival. Welcome to normal life in Z-Burbia!

Essential Beginnings


Kennedy Layne - 2015
    He also had every intention of extinguishing the fires that arose between him and a certain local woman he couldn’t get out of his mind until the unthinkable happened. Nothing is as it seems… Henley Varano loved the simple anonymous life that her remote hometown provided. She’d had the wealthy existence of a fashion model and the fame that came with it only to find it lonelier than she could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, men only saw the fictitious person she appeared to be in the magazines and not the real woman she was—even the one man she’s wanted for years. Surviving is just the beginning… An apocalyptic event changes the course of their lives when the massive Yellowstone Caldera erupts. Panic ensues among the small town, causing Mav and Henley to witness the best and worst of humanity. They must work as a team to create a new existence before the fallout of harsh and fiery elements overtakes their safe haven. Along the way, they might just find that they need each other more than ever.

Patient Zero


Iain Rob Wright - 2013
    Housed hundreds of feet below the ground, the Government complex is home to hundreds of deadly viruses, diseases, and parasites.But one specimen is deadlier than them all. His name is Welshchild. And he wants out.

Grid Down #1


Roger Hayden - 2015
    But the loss of power is only the beginning. With no signs of assistance on the horizons and no way of knowing how far the blackout has spread, residents are left to deal with a world without power, communications, and vehicle mobility. The government is absent. Food and supplies have been pillaged, and families must choose whether to stay or flee. However, nothing can prepare them for the onslaught of a horde of escaped convicts who band together and take over the town. Rob Parker and his family have taken refuge in their cabin in the mountains with a small group of preppers—families like them, who took quick, decisive action on the day of the blast: September 12, 2106. Two months have passed and the news transmitted through their emergency radio indicates that things have only gotten worse throughout the entire country. Their plan to hunker down and survive in the mountains using their combined prepper skills is gravely threatened by the discovery of their community. The calculating leader of the convicts, a man who refers to himself as the new Mayor of Nyack, proposes an offer: enter a trading pact with his people or face the repercussions. But Rob knows that whatever deal his people make, they must be ready to defend their mountain community by any means necessary. He is certain that one day the convicts will soon strike. And the day of a total assault on their camp is rapidly approaching. In this new thrilling disaster series, author Roger Hayden continues the saga of his best-selling EMP series, “The Pulse,” taking readers on an intense, terrifying journey through a digital-dependent world striped of both its modern conveniences and humanity.

Hater


David Moody - 2006
    Christened “Haters” by the media, the attackers strike without warning and seemingly without reason. Within seconds, normally rational, self-controlled people become frenzied, vicious killers. As the carnage mounts, one thing soon is clear: everyone, irrespective of race, gender, age, or class, has the potential to become either a Hater or a victim. At any moment, even friends and family can turn on one another with violent intent. In the face of this mindless terror, all McCoyne can do is secure his family, seek shelter, and watch as the world falls apart. But when he bolts the front door, the question remains: Is he shutting the danger out or locking it in?

dEaDINBURGH: Vantage


Mark Wilson - 2014
    In a desperate attempt to quarantine the infected, the city leaders seal the residents of Mary King's Close in their underground homes.2015: Mary King's Close is reopened, unleashing a mutated plague upon the city residents. The UK government seals the entire city. Declaring it a dead zone they seal the survivors inside alongside the infected. dEaDINBURGH is declared a no man's land, its residents left for dead and to the dead. 2050: Joseph MacLeod, born onto the cobbles of the Royal Mile and stolen from the clutches of the infected is determined to escape the quarantined city. Under the guidance of former marine Padre Jock, he leaves the confines of the city centre and hones his archery and free-running skills.Alys Shephard, born into an all-women farming community believes a cure lies in the south of the quarantined zone. The finest combatant in the dead city, Alys burns with anger. The anger of an abandoned child.Something much worse than the infected waits for them in the south, in the form of a religious cult led by a madman named Somna who collects gruesome trophies and worships the dead body of a former celebrity. Added to this the enigmatic Bracha, a supreme survivalist and sadistic former Royal with his own agenda, stalks the teenagers.A self-contained story, dEaDINBURGH is a character-driven Young Adult/Horror/Dystopian novel exploring the human capacity for good, evil and for survival.

Homeostasis Lost


Kyan Yauchler - 2013
    They each wake early one late spring morning to find that nothing works—phones, cars, clocks. Everything involving electricity is dead. As the reality of what has happened comes to light, they begin to leave their homes, some in search of answers, others in desperate need of help. People around them are dying, planes are crashing, riots are forming, and no one can do anything about it. The three eventually cross paths and head into an uncertain future together in hopes of again finding balance—homeostasis—in this new world without power. That is, if they can survive.