Book picks similar to
Madness by M.L. Banner


horror
apocalyptic
ebook
post-apocalyptic

Devoured


Jason Brant - 2013
     Day Two: Higher brain function erodes in those exposed to the gas. Their bodies begin to distort, faces distending, skin sallowing, teeth elongating. Day Three: The infected disappear into the shadows, fleeing the harsh daylight which has begun to sear their flesh. Day Four: The world is DEVOURED. Life isn’t kind to Lance York. A full-time job has eluded him for years, his wife loathes the sight of him, his bank accounts are empty, and his wealthy father-in-law revels in his failures. After he lunges in front of a car to save a sick and disoriented woman, Lance awakens in a quarantined hospital. A devastating plague is spreading worldwide, driving those infected with it insane. Their bodies begin to mutate into horrors that have haunted mankind’s nightmares for centuries. The world descends into chaos as the infected flee to the shadows, emerging at night to devour the remnants of civilization. With the help of an unlikely ally, Lance must navigate through the collapsing city of Pittsburgh, striving to escape the madness of the apocalypse that unfolds around them.

ZC One


Chris Harris - 2017
     A genetically modified virus killer mutates, transforming everyone it infects into zombies. As it rapidly spreads across the globe, small groups of survivors battle to stay alive and escape the growing hordes of flesh eaters. Tom, Becky and their two children are on a family holiday when the virus hits. Follow them as they try to fight their way to safety, gathering others along the way. They soon realise that their best chance of survival will be to reach an ancient symbol of power and strength. Their future and safety lie behind a castle’s walls. Together they must undertake a daunting one hundred mile journey. Will they make it?

The In-Betweener


Ann Christy - 2015
    Two years after the end of the world, she talks to herself and smashes heads with her favorite sledgehammer. This is not the life she imagined for herself as her eighteenth birthday rolls past.It’s time for her to look beyond her safe, little hiding place to the world beyond. The madness of the apocalypse is ending, the dangerous in-betweeners - those no longer quite human, but not yet dead - are few and far between. The deaders that cover the world are going still, their senses dulled by time and the elements. The problem is that there are no people...none. Emily has found not a single living human when she's dared to step outside her safe-zone.As Emily weighs the heavy cost of surviving alone and begins to accept the inevitable, everything changes once again. One of the deaders at her gate turns out not to be a deader at all. He’s an in-betweener different from any other she has seen before, and he carries a message. If Emily has the courage to step beyond her gate and the skills to survive a perilous trip in a dead world, she might just have a chance at life...a life with humans...after all.The In-Betweener is book one in the thrilling post-apocalyptic adventure series, Between Life and Death.

Wormwood


Micah Ackerman - 2014
    Regularly suffering from panic attacks triggered by news reports of world catastrophes, he can barely handle his everyday life even when rationally, the events should not affect him. Nate becomes a prepper to help him cope with the anxiety, stocking a makeshift shelter. So when nuclear disaster actually strikes home, Nate must employ truly heroic courage or fold to his fears. But in the aftermath of the bombs, it quickly becomes apparent that surviving the attack is just the beginning—there is far worse yet to come. Wormwood is a taut, post-apocalyptic thriller told from the perspective of three main characters: flawed hero Nate; Jeanette, his intelligent love interest; and Simon, the unstable leader of their survivor community.

Allison's Secret


D. Stalter - 2018
    Like any farm wife, she is prepared for bad storms, bad times, and bad luck. But, even her husband is unaware that she is more prepared than the average farm wife. (But don't ever call Allison a prepper!) Riley and Will are motorcycle buddies on a mission to rescue Riley's nephew who's been kidnapped by his father. When a solar flare throws them all together, there's going to be problems. Allison's Secret offers a different approach to the post apocalyptic fiction genre. Follow a woman who has a will to survive as she works to build a community that offers hope for a new future.

Prepared


Courtney Konstantin - 2017
    She always thought her father was insane, raving about an apocalypse she never believed in, but when a plague hits the United States and the dead no longer stay dead, Alex discovers heeding her deceased father’s advice is what will keep her family alive. Before he died, Alex’s father created a compound in Montana just in case situations like this arose.Hell has arrived on earth.The dead walk, hungry for human flesh. Living in a highly populated city like Las Vegas makes the reality of the plague imminent to Alex. With little time to spare, Alex must make split-second decisions to prevent her family from being devoured. Facing the end, Alex has three goals.Escape Las Vegas. Get to the compound. Survive.As the outside world crumbles and grows darker, Alex faces adversity from not just the infected, but the uninfected as well. Government assistance is nowhere in sight, and rumors fly that the nation’s only solution to the growing plague is execution.Not everyone will outlast the plague. Doomsday is here. Will Alex be up to the challenge, or fall, and rise again as one of the undead?

Through the Storm


Kyle Pratt - 2017
     That’s the news Neal Evans hears while hundreds of miles from home at a conference in Nevada. Will it cause only beautiful auroras to dance across the night sky or plunge technology back a hundred years? As politicians and scientists debate, Neal drives north toward home. On the family farm, Drake Evans is a happy high school freshman. Instead of staying home with his younger brother, Conner Evans has gone hunting. So, it’s party time for Drake! As the world descends into darkness, Neal and Conner must confront panic, hunger, and fear on their long journeys home. Drake, alone on the farm, must become a man even before he unravels his teen years.

One Second After


William R. Forstchen - 2009
    Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real ... a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages ... A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe, and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future ... and our end.

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?

Red Hill


Jamie McGuire - 2013
    Nathan has a wife, but can’t remember what it’s like to be in love; only his young daughter Zoe makes coming home worthwhile. Miranda’s biggest concern is whether her new VW Bug is big enough to carry her sister and their boyfriends on a weekend escape from college finals.When reports of a widespread, deadly “outbreak” begin to surface, these ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances and suddenly their fates are intertwined. Recognizing they can’t outrun the danger, Scarlet, Nathan, and Miranda desperately seek shelter at the same secluded ranch, Red Hill. Emotions run high while old and new relationships are tested in the face of a terrifying enemy—an enemy who no longer remembers what it’s like to be human.Set against the backdrop of a brilliantly realized apocalyptic world, love somehow finds a way to survive. But what happens when the one you’d die for becomes the one who could destroy you?Red Hill grabs you from page one and doesn’t let go until its stunning conclusion. This is #1 New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire at her unforgettable best.

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.

Unexpected World


Chris Pike - 2016
     Assistant District Attorney Dillon Stockdale is on the phone with his daughter when an EMP obliterates the entire electrical grid of the United States. Anything relying on a computer is fried, including the plane his daughter is on. Gripped with the terrifying realization the plane has crash-landed somewhere in the expansive and dangerous landscape of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, Dillon sets out to rescue her before it’s too late. A harrowing survival story with non-stop, pulse-pounding action, Unexpected World is a story of good vs. evil, of a complex narrative of fight or flight, and mind-bending choices resulting in profound consequences. Dillon Stockdale is determined, he’s well-equipped, and nothing will stop him. Or will it?

Out of Darkness


Jason D. Morrow - 2013
    As she travels the wastelands, she discovers a power within herself, a power she believes no other human possesses. That is, until she meets others like her – the ones who call themselves the Starborn. These super-humans are on a mission also: to destroy the undead greyskins, and take down the greedy Jeremiah. Mora must now choose between the one who can keep her family safe, and those that can show her who she truly is.

Aftertime


Sophie Littlefield - 2011
    Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished.And with her, nearly all of civilization.Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters -- people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider, let alone a woman who became a zombie and somehow turned back, but she finds help from an enigmatic outlaw, Smoke. Smoke is her savior, and her safety.For the Beaters are out there.And the humans grip at survival with their trigger fingers. Especially when they learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, of weapons in a brave new world….

The Passage


Justin Cronin - 2010
    government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.