Book picks similar to
Dead Lines by Grace Hamilton


thriller
apocalypse
grace-hamilton
emp

Kahayatle


Elle Casey - 2012
    My name is Bryn Mathis. I'm seventeen years old, and I live in a neighborhood outside of Orlando, Florida. I’m here alone because my dad died almost a year ago, along with all the other adults in the world. I'm almost out of food, and the gangs of kids that roam around my town are getting more vicious by the day. It's time for me to leave and find another place to live ... a place where I can find food and shelter ... a place where they won't be able to find me. Alone, it might have been possible, but now I've got company. I'm worried that I don't have what it takes to get from here to my final destination, and I have no idea what might be waiting for me when I get there.

War Dogs Heading Home


A.J. Newman - 2019
    An EMP blast causes their plane to crash in the middle of nowhere. Having survived two disasters, they face the struggle to get home. Being warfighters, they certainly have the skills needed to survive in hostile surroundings, but in a world gone mad, where life clings on by a thread and people will kill for a few scraps of food, can they make it home alive? And if they can, will there be anything left to return to?

After the End


Amy Plum - 2014
    They’re hunting her to save their future.World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

Invasion


Sean Platt - 2015
    The countdown has begun.First visible only as blips on a telescope image, the discovery of objects approaching from Jupiter orbit immediately sets humanity on edge. NASA doesn't even bother to deny the alien ships' existence. The popular Astral space app (broadcasting from the far side of the moon and accessible by anyone with internet) has already shown the populace what is coming. So the news has turned from evasion to triage, urging calm and offering the few facts they have: The objects are enormous, perfectly round spheres numbering in the dozens, maybe hundreds. They are on an approach vector for Earth. And they will arrive in six days. Fear simmers.Meyer Dempsey - mogul, wealthy entrepreneur, arrogant and always in charge - is in New York, on the phone with his ex-wife in LA when the news breaks. He can hear tension in the voices of reporters and experts chronicling all that's known and unknown. But even while those supposedly in charge restrain their own panic, Meyer finds he recognizes bits and pieces of what the world is facing. He's seen this in dreams - in visions of another place. He knows where he and his family must go. He has prepared … though he never knew until now what he'd been preparing for. He knows only they cannot hesitate. They must run to their safe haven in the Colorado mountains. Now. Before society shatters into chaos, and it all falls apart. Fear rises.Meyer has been taking steps for months, and has made preparations: a trove of supplies, a van stocked for the worst, a Gulfstream waiting at a small airstrip in Jersey. But he hasn't yet been able to take the final and most important step: moving the family to Colorado, where every contingency is covered. The networks stay on-air longer than expected, creating a farce of calm. But those with means have already begun to scramble as Meyer gathers his wife Piper and his two teenage children and begins their race toward that compound, toward safety. There is no time for hesitation, regret, or pity. Soon, pundits begin to ask questions hard enough to tip those who've thus far stayed calm out of their complacency, inciting chaos: What do the beings inside the ships want? What will they do when they arrive? And what if the scientists are wrong, and the spheres aren't decelerating? Will they strike the planet, raising clouds of extinction dust? Will they knock the Earth off its axis? Is this a prelude to an alien invasion? An alien war? An alien apocalypse? The first domino in the birth of a new alien empire? Fear erupts.Panic, once it breaches the thin crust of civilized society, spreads like a virus. Meyer knows only one thing, and it's a truth that has perched atop his mind like a psychic obsession: When the ships arrive, his family must be at the Colorado compound or all will be lost. The space fleet in itself doesn't matter. The disintegration on the surviving news outlets does not matter. Reports that Las Vegas has been set ablaze do not matter. The fate of humanity, in Meyer's eyes, doesn't matter.All that matters is Piper. Trevor. Delilah. And Meyer's ex-wife Heather, coming to the same destination from the west - a woman who remains his best friend, and his secret lover. Rioting spills into the highways as time ticks away. Unrest boils in both city and hinterlands. But Meyer's obsession to reach Vail is single-minded, guided with the focus of a far-seeing nightmare. Gangs can ground his plane, threaten his vehicles, and steal his belongings. But nothing will stand between Meyer's family and their haven … and Meyer will kill his way to Colorado if he has to. This relentless, page-turning tale of apocalyptic dawn is the first in the alien invasion series by masters of story Truant and Platt, authors of The Beam, Robot Proletariat, the Dream Engine series, and many more.

Serious Crimes


Frank Tayell - 2015
     They called them Artificial Intelligences. Sentient viruses were closer to the truth. They spread throughout the world until every networked circuit was infected. Then they went to war. Millions died in the nuclear holocaust that brought an abrupt end to the AI’s brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation, starvation, and disease. But millions survived, and they rebuilt. Twenty years later, a ceremony is being held to mark the first transatlantic broadcast since The Blackout. The Prime Minister of Britain and two of the Presidents of the United States will speak to an audience of nearly ten million people. Not all are celebrating. Crime is on the rise, and power is once again a prize worth murdering for. Ruth Deering, a new graduate from the police academy, doesn’t care about ancient history or current affairs. She only joined the force to escape the smog-infested city. Those hopes are dashed when she is assigned to the Serious Crimes Unit, commanded by the disgraced Sergeant Mitchell. Her first case seems like a simple murder, but the investigation uncovers a counterfeiting ring and a conspiracy that threatens to destroy their fragile democracy. A post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world of rationing and ruins, where a democracy struggles not to become a dystopia. The investigation continues in Counterfeit Conspiracy. (77,000 words)

Patient Zero


L.T. Ryan - 2013
    An experiment has gone horribly wrong and threatens to wipe all traces of humanity from Earth. 3rd Ranger Battalion, Bravo Company is sent in to assist, clean up the mess before it gets out of control.They've vanished.Sean Ryder is an Air Force Pararescueman. Attached to SEAL Team 8, he believes he is on a routine rescue and recovery mission. Less than half an hour after landing in Nigeria, he knows that is not the case. And the further his mission leads him, the harder it becomes to get out alive.Patient Zero is the first book in the zombie apocalypse / post-apocalyptic series Affliction Z.

Standing With Righteous Rage


William Alan Webb - 2020
    Steeple’s dream of a totalitarian America under his hand as benevolent dictator can now become a reality, even if it means making common cause with America’s mortal enemies. No treachery is too great to fulfill his ambitions, and those of his friends.But American patriotism doesn’t die that easily, and Steeple just might find out that men and women still exist to protect those who can’t protect themselves. Regardless of the odds, some people take their service oaths seriously, even unto death.Such courage always has a cost, though, and this time the cost is high.

Coldbrook


Tim Lebbon - 2012
    Its scientists had achieved the impossible: a gateway to a new world. Theirs was to be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, but they had no idea what they were about to unleash.With their breakthrough comes disease and now it is out and ravaging the human population. The only hope is a cure and the only cure is genetic resistance: an uninfected person amongst the billions dead.In the chaos of destruction there is only one person that can save the human race.But will they find her in time?

Run


Blake Crouch - 2011
    Brutal. Seemingly unconnected. A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike. A mass of school shootings. Prison riots of unprecedented brutality. Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.4 D A Y S A G OThe murders increased ten-fold…3 D A Y S A G OThe President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace…2 D A Y S A G OThe killers began to mobilize…Y E S T E R D A YAll the power went out…T O N I G H TThey’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more. You only have time to….R U NThis 80,000-word novel also contains a bonus interview with Blake, and excerpts from his other work.

Apache Dawn


Marcus Richardson - 2014
    One man holds the key to stopping the deadly outbreak in its tracks and the governments of the world--including his own--will stop at nothing to find him. From Los Angeles to Boston, to the Northern Rockies--follow Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and average Americans as they struggle to save America and themselves. Apache Dawn is the story of America's fight for survival against a terrible virus, foreign invasion, and political intrigue.

The Loop


Ben Oliver - 2020
    But when news of the encroaching chaos in the outside world reaches the inmates and disorder begins to strike, the prison becomes the least of their worries.It's Luka Kane's sixteenth birthday and he's been inside The Loop for over two years. Every inmate is serving a death sentence with the option to push back their execution date by six months if they opt into "Delays", scientific and medical experiments for the benefit of the elite in the outside world. But rumors of a war on the outside are spreading amongst the inmates, and before they know it, their tortuous routine becomes disrupted. The government issued rain stops falling. Strange things are happening to the guards. And it's not long until the inmates are left alone inside the prison. Were the chains that shackled Luka to his cell the only instruments left to keep him safe? He must overcome fellow prisoners hell-bent on killing him, the warden losing her mind, the rabid rats in the train tunnels, and a population turned into murderous monsters to try and break out of The Loop, save his family, and discover who is responsible for the chaos that has been inflicted upon the world.

The Pawn in the Portal


Nick Cole - 2016
    Ward, a tier-one operator turned mercenary, has just flung himself off the cargo deck of a doomed C-130. Now he’s out of the Drop Zone and evading the undead as a terrible new breed of hunter enters the Wyrd. But these new, faster predators might not be the only thing to fear in an apocalypse beset by zombies, nukes and killer A.I.’s. One of the last warriors of a collapsed government is planning on putting up some big numbers in this final, ultimate game of Survivor, until he finds a mysterious new companion... a stranger dressed in black.

Contagion


L.I. Albemont - 2012
    Almost overnight the town becomes a snowy tomb of the roaming, hungry infected. Stranded by the weather, hiding, a small group of survivors follows the progress of the disease as society around them and around the world begins to break down. Determined to escape, they find that the normal rules of civilization don’t apply anymore. Will they be able to adapt to this strange, hungry new world?

H10N1


M.R. Cornelius - 2011
    There is no easy-fix vaccine. No eleventh-hour containment. Only death. With no workforce, power plants have been shut down, police and fire departments have collapsed, crops lie unpicked in the fields.When Dr. Taeya Sanchez finds herself unceremoniously dismissed from an emergency medical facility in New York, she decides to steal the hospital's armored van for a midnight escape. Unfortunately, Rick DeAngelo, a driver for the hospital, has already stocked the van for his own getaway.Thrown into an unfriendly alliance, these two must pick their way across the dangerous wasteland of America in search of a safe haven. And as the miles roll by, they discover that the living should be feared much more than the festering corpses out there.

Tyrant: The Rise (Book 1)


L. Douglas Hogan - 2015
    The author of "OATH TAKERS" brings you his version of a neo-political post-apocalyptic novel of how America could end if patriots and oath takers refuse to honor their oaths to the Constitution and embody the American spirit of resistance to tyranny.