Book picks similar to
Erupt by Lou Cadle


disaster
fiction
romance
post-apocalyptic

Eruption


E.S. Richards - 2019
    As fire and ash consume all in their path, signs point to the disaster not being as natural as it first appears... Barely escaping the disaster in a small plane that takes off from the Yellowstone airport, Mia finds her Texas A&M life turned upside down as the days of class and studying turn into a fight for the very air she needs to survive. While she tries to help her fellow survivors, her niece and nephew are being watched over by her parents on a small farm that quickly succumbs to the choking clouds of ash. Both sides of the family must fight against man - and nature - in this unique take on the classic Yellowstone post-apocalyptic story. Written by ES Richards in conjunction with #1 best-selling post-apocalyptic author Mike Kraus, this thrilling post-apocalyptic series features characters that are vulnerable, naive and inexperienced who work alongside the prepared and experienced to get through the end of days. The Escaping Darkness series will be 6-books long, published at a rate of approximately one book per month.

Cascadia


H.W. "Buzz" Bernard - 2016
    . . In the face of a massive earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest, a respected geologist must make two gut-wrenching decisions. One could cost him his reputation, the other, his life. Is the Northwest overdue for a huge quake and tsunami, or will the region remain safe for hundreds of years yet to come? No one knows… or does someone? Dr. Rob Elwood, a geologist whose specialty is earthquakes and tsunamis, is having nightmares of "the big one" that are way too real to disregard. His friend, a counselor and retired reverend, does not think Rob is going nuts. To the contrary, he believes the dreams are premonitions to be taken seriously. No one else does, however, even after a press conference. Some live to regret it, most don't. Rob's drama becomes intertwined with others--a retired fighter pilot trying to make amends to a woman he jilted decades ago and a quixotic retiree searching for legendary buried treasure in the rugged coastal mountains of Oregon.All are about to live Rob's nightmare."Riveting, scary, and entirely believable . . . a compelling, page-turning thriller with the ring of truth." Jerry Thompson, author of Cascadia's Fault H. W. "Buzz" Bernard, a native Oregonian born in Eugene and raised in Portland, is a best-selling, award-winning novelist. His debut novel, Eyewall, which one reviewer called a "perfect summer beach read," was released in May 2011 and went on to become a number-one best seller in Amazon's Kindle Store. Before becoming a novelist, Buzz worked at The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia, as a senior meteorologist for thirteen years. Prior to that, he served as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Force for over three decades. He attained the rank of colonel and his "airborne" experiences include a mission with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters, air drops over the Arctic Ocean and Turkey, and a stint as a weather officer aboard a Tactical Air Command airborne command post (C-135).

Cracked Earth


Deborah D. Moore - 2014
    Many years later she’s living a quiet and peaceful life in a remote region of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and still preparing. This serves her well when a horrendous natural disaster rocks the entire country and brings all shipping to a halt, leaving many without food and other necessary supplies. In her small town of Moose Creek, Allexa serves as the little needed emergency manager, but is called on when many start to feel the effects of the food and gas shortage and they don’t know where else to turn. The nearby county seat is overwhelmed and leaves Allexa to handle the problems that arise on her own. With the crisis worsening, power plants begin to divert electricity to the major cities, leaving the town a casualty of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. With this happening at the beginning of winter, the timing couldn’t be worse. The lack of heat pushes the residents to the limits of endurance; some leave for the city to be taken care of, others stay only to die of exposure, starvation or illness. Still others that have stayed survive by working together, only to be attacked by outsiders wanting what little the town has left. As the winter progresses, more and more issues come up for Allexa to deal with, some of a very personal nature. Her son turns to her for help in caring for his autistic child when his wife goes missing. She then learns to prioritize and she learns she can’t save everyone. “This isn’t your typical post-apocalyptic story. There are no zombies, no teenagers who save the world in a society now devoid of adults, and no super macho men who get shot a dozen times and keep on moving. This is about a small town, populated by people like you and me, trying to survive in a world falling apart. This story is frightening because it’s so real and could happen, anywhere, anytime.”

Overfall


Marcus Richardson - 2020
    A country torn apart. A man who will stop at nothing to get home to his family.When a massive landslide in the Canary Islands sets off a mega-tsunami, the east coast of North America is square in its path. On a fishing trip off the coast of Maine, Reese Lavelle barely manages to make it to high ground when the wave hits. His only thought? Getting home to his wife and daughter in South Carolina.Cami and Amber Lavelle barely escape the wave in Charleston, they retreat inland, watching the city as it's wiped out by the wave in one fell swoop. As those who survived slowly sink into madness and the country succumbs to chaos, Cami's goal is simple: survive at any cost.

The Rift


Walter Jon Williams - 1999
    They won't stop barking. . . . And then the earth shrugs—8.9 on the Richter scale in the world's biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster . . . but no one listened. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin as America's heartland falls into the nightmare known as the Rift—a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, including a teenager separated from his mother, an African-American engineer searching for his daughter, a TV preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real, and a sheriff cum Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the midst of disaster.It can happen. And sooner or later, it will.

Inbound


E.E. Isherwood - 2020
    Isherwood comes a frighteningly real new post-apocalyptic series. A radical new mission. A devastating disaster. Survival is no longer guaranteed. The Tikkanen Kinetic Mining corporation has perfected the science of asteroid mining - or so they say. When they bring an asteroid in from the asteroid belt and try to put it into orbit around the Earth, though, it turns out things aren't as perfect as they'd like us to believe. The 1600-meter rock gets loose and plummets down, bringing death and chaos across the entire continental United States. Along with this chaos comes opportunity, though, for those who know where to find it. Trillions of dollars of valuable minerals locked inside the asteroid are now scattered across the country, fueling even more conflict and destruction as everyone tries to grab a piece of the pie - all while fighting to survive. Impact is a 6-book post-apocalyptic survival series from the #1 post-apocalyptic author Mike Kraus and USA Today and NYT best-selling author E.E. Isherwood. This series follows the desperate survival of several characters in a post-apocalyptic world, including a mother and father separated from their daughter, a whistleblower pursued by a dangerous assassin, a sociopathic CEO out for profit above all else and a former soldier who teams up with an unlikely ally in the name of survival. This novel-length post-apoc survival thriller series will be released monthly.

The Walk


Lee Goldberg - 2004
    Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do ... that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.There's no power. No running water. No order.Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be ... if he can survive The Walk.

Fire Country


David Estes - 2013
    Due to toxic air, life expectancies are so low the only way the tribe can survive is by forcing women to procreate when they turn sixteen and every three years thereafter. It is their duty as Bearers.Fifteen-year-old Siena is a Youngling, soon to be a Bearer, when she starts hearing rumors of another tribe of all women, called the Wild Ones. They are known to kidnap Youngling girls before the Call, the ceremony in which Bearers are given a husband with whom to bear children with. As the desert sands run out on her life's hourglass, Siena must uncover the truth about the Wild Ones while untangling the web of lies and deceit her father has masterfully spun.

7th Sigma


Steven Gould - 2011
    Leave your metal behind, all of it. The bugs will eat it, and they'll go right through you to get it…Don't carry it, don't wear it, and for god's sake don't come here if you've got a pacemaker.The bugs showed up about fifty years ago--self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-eating machines. No one knows where they came from. They don't like water, though, so they've stayed in the desert Southwest. The territory. People still live here, but they do it without metal. Log cabins, ceramics, what plastic they can get that will survive the sun and heat. Technology has adapted, and so have the people.Kimble Monroe has chosen to live in the territory. He was born here, and he is extraordinarily well adapted to it. He's one in a million. Maybe one in a billion.In 7th Sigma, Gould builds an extraordinary SF novel of survival and personal triumph against all the odds.

Grace Lost


M. Lauryl Lewis - 2012
    They are joined by two other survivors, Gus and Emilie. Infected, Zoe must also face the realization that she has developed a telepathic link to the living dead that fills her mind with darkness and evil. Facing unimaginable horrors and unthinkable tragedies, the group must fight both the living and the dead. Zoe and Boggs manage to fall in love while surrounded by death and despair. Before long, it becomes clear that the living dead do not play by usual zombie rules.

Ravenous


Erica Stevens - 2012
    But in some strange way, ice was the end; or maybe it was the beginning of something more.Bethany is stunned and horrified when she finds herself suddenly alone in a world that was alive only moments before. Terrified, she flees into the streets of her town, looking for answers, and desperate to reach her family. Panicked, she is nearly captured by the monsters hunting her until Cade steps in to rescue her. Dark and distant, most people in school are wary of Cade, yet oddly fascinated by him. They had once been close as children, but it has been years since Bethany has had any real contact with Cade. As their situation becomes even more perilous, Bethany struggles to come to terms with her past, her terrifying new reality, and her growing love for a boy that is powerful, mysterious, and perhaps even more frightening than the aliens hunting them. Aliens that want more than their lives, they also want their blood.

CyberStorm


Matthew Mather - 2013
    As the world and cyberworlds come crashing down, bending perception and reality, a monster snowstorm cuts New York off from the world, becoming a wintry tomb where no one can be trusted, and nothing is what it seems...CyberStorm is a techno-thriller set in present-day New York City that will appeal to fans of Michael Chichton and Tom Clancy as well as devotees of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. It is an exploration of the human condition as the cyberworld collides with our own, a compelling portrait of a possible future that is all too terrifyingly real.

New Madrid Earthquake


Bobby Akart - 2020
    It won't the second time.New Madrid.A standalone disaster thriller from international bestselling author, Bobby Akart, one of America's favorite storytellers, who has delivered up-all-night thrillers to readers in 245 countries and territories worldwide. "Akart is a master of suspense, keeping us on the edge of our seats. But, he does it with fact-based fiction that would scare even the most hardened readers." Two hundred years ago, several faults within the New Madrid seismic zone along the Mississippi River ruptured triggering some of the largest earthquakes in American history. The three massive quakes ripped open America's Heartland, shaking residents as far away as New York City and Washington, DC while ringing church bells in Boston and Charleston, South Carolina. "No one can research like Bobby Akart and then turn this meticulous research into one exciting thrill ride." Akart's standalone novel, New Madrid, is based on actual events. It just hasn't happened yet, until now. 200 years later after the historic quake sequence of 1811-12, it's reawakened. " This is a story of fortitude and love for family - do you have what it takes to survive and make it back to your loved ones ." The New Madrid fault zone, six times larger than the San Andreas in California, has generated a series of massive earthquakes thrusting the Atwood and Chandler families in a fight to survive. Attorney Jack Atwood and his brother-in-law Tony Chandler are winding up their year-end tax planning presentation atop The Met, a skyscraper in St. Louis, before returning to Memphis for their family's Christmas celebration. Jill Atwood, her daughter Emily and teenage son Tate, are in a downtown Memphis performing arts theater attending the dress rehearsal for Emily's Christmas pageant. Beth Chandler, 28 weeks pregnant, together with her 3-year old autistic son, are traveling from Louisiana to join the rest of the family in Memphis.Will they arrive for Christmas? Will they arrive at all? Their lives are about to change forever. "You are there. Feeling what they feel. Anger, joy, love, mourning. You feel it all. Not everyone can write a book like this. It takes a special writer to make you feel a book." Bobby Akart has delivered intense, up-all-night thrillers causing you to whisper just one more chapter until the end.

Forbidden


Ted Dekker - 2011
    The world's greatest threats have all been silenced. There is no anger, no hatred, no war. There is only perfect peace... and fear. But a terrible secret has been closely guarded for centuries: Every single soul walking the earth, though in appearance totally normal, is actually dead, long ago genetically stripped of true humanity. Fleeing pursuit, with only moments to live, a young man named Rom stumbles into possession of a vial of blood and a piece of cryptic writing. When consumed, the blood will bring him back to life. When decoded, the message will lead him on a perilous journey that will require him to abandon everything he has ever known and awaken humanity to the transforming power of true life and love. But the blood will also resurrect hatred, ambition, and greed. Set in a terrifying, medieval future, where grim pageantry masks death, this tale of dark desires and staggering stakes peels back the layers of the heart for all who dare to take the ride.

Collapse


Richard Stephenson - 2012
    With the American people deep in The Second Great Depression and two of the most powerful hurricanes on record to contend with, the United States is in no condition to deal with hidden terrorists on its soil, maniacal politicians, and the most formidable military threat the world has seen since the Third Reich. This is the story of three men from three very different walks of life: Howard Beck, the world's richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome; Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict; and Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned-out chief of police of a small Texas town. At first, they must overcome their own struggles and fight for their survival against impossible odds. In the end, the unlikely trio must band together to save their beloved country from COLLAPSE. Empires topple. Nations crumble. Civilization is fragile. In 2027, America will fall.