Book picks similar to
First Wave by J.T. Sawyer


horror
zombies
zombie
post-apocalyptic

Hell on Earth


Tony Urban - 2016
    Today there are less than 5000. After a man-made plague destroys the population cities burn, and the government crumbles when the dead come back to life as flesh-hungry zombies. Wim, a 30-year-old farmer, purposely kept himself cut off from other people, but when the undead arrive at his farm, intent on eating him, he’s forced to venture out into the land around him and fight to save a world on which he long ago turned his back. Survivors from all walks of life - criminals and fry cooks, teenagers and soldiers - battle to survive zombies and each other as mankind races toward extinction. Book 1 in the epic "Life of Dead" zombie apocalypse series, "Hell on Earth"

Eden


David Holley - 2012
    Through their trials, the Lockhearts begin to uncover the girl’s ability in spite of her best efforts to keep it hidden. But even as Mia proves to be an invaluable ally, her gift comes at an unbearable cost. Each step brings them closer to salvation– and to unraveling the mystery of their abandonment. But just when they think they are saved, they realize that they have never been farther from home.Eden is a bold, heart-pounding page-turner, told through the seamlessly shifting perspectives of the eccentric band of survivors. As the thriller unfolds, so do the survivors’ inextricable links to one another in a plot rife with twists and turns, till the very end.

Pockets of the Dead


Karen Carr - 2014
    She kills zombies. Well, technically her virus kills zombies, the one that she contracted after being bitten by her undead neighbor. The virus is invaluable, killing everything undead that comes within a thousand feet of where she stands. But it is also destructive, unless Hella can escape the truth, she might be doomed to a terrible fate.All Hella wanted to do was graduate from college, but she is thrust into a world she never imagined, one filled with moments of sheer terror and the idea that humanity can be saved by a few. She brings together a tribe of survivors, keeping her virus a secret; instead claiming the village they live in is protected by a mysterious zombie-killing aura. Hella has to sacrifice so much for the people she grows to love, for she can’t leave the village without risking their death.When Hella meets Huck, he captures her heart, but it is his friend Zeke that can help her save humankind. Two heroic men, one she hates and one she loves. Can Hella rise above the chaos of her heart and chose the one to benefit the world? The right choice might mean the difference between surviving and survival of the species.

Rot & Ruin


Jonathan Maberry - 2010
    Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

They Came with the Snow


Christopher Coleman - 2017
    When a mysterious blast goes off in a small college town, triggering a blizzard, the few survivors must decide whether to stay or leave and face the monsters who came with the snow.

A Happy Bureaucracy


M.P. Fitzgerald - 2019
    However, his dreams will be put on hold as the IRS plans a census into new irradiated territory and he is forced to work with freelance Enforcer, Rabia Duke, whose diet of drugs is hand to mouth. This will be a suicide mission, and neither is keen to see the other survive. The denizens of the wastes have much to fear. Radiation, roving gangs of psychopaths, and starvation, but the thing they should fear most is bureaucracy… …a happy bureaucracy.

Capital Falling


Lance Winkless - 2019
    While a viral epidemic hammers London, Andy finds himself trapped in the epicenter, forced to protect his family. Together with his young daughter, he leads a small group of survivors toward latent refuge, all the while searching for his missing son and infantryman; this is the ultimate game of survival. With those infected displaying brutal, inhuman behavior and caught up in a climate of martial law, no one can be trusted. Old connections may help to unravel this mystery virus, but the resultant hellscape means Andy and his group meet danger at every turn. Stakes are high, and failing means a fate worse than death... ------------------------ The perfect tale for troubled times, Capital Falling delivers dark thrills and surprising sentiment—twisted, cerebral fun. You’ll race to the end like your life depends on it...

The Loners


Lex Thomas - 2012
    When loner David Thorpe tried to help his English teacher to safety, the teacher convulsed and died right in front of him. And that was just the beginning.A year later, McKinley has descended into chaos. All the students are infected with a virus that makes them deadly to adults. The school is under military quarantine. The teachers are gone. Violent gangs have formed based on high school social cliques. Without a gang, you’re as good as dead. And David has no gang. It’s just him and his little brother, Will, against the whole school.

Please Remain Calm


Courtney Summers - 2015
    Rhys is determined to reunite with Sloane until he discovers people who might need him more--people who offer him the closest he'll get to everything he's lost, if they can just hold on long enough. Rhys thinks he has what it takes to survive and find the girl he lost, but in a world overrun by the dead, there are no guarantees and the next leg of his journey will test him in unimaginable ways ...

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.

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.

Breakers


Edward W. Robertson - 2012
    In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter.When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity, running water, or neighbors, Walt begins an existential walk to LA, where Vanessa had planned to move when she left him. He expects to die along the way.Months later, a massive vessel appears above Santa Monica Bay. Walt is attacked by a crablike monstrosity in a mountain stream. The virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.

The Longest Night


K.M. Fawkes - 2018
    History of blood clots? Cholesterol clogging up the old ticker? There was a nanobot for that. It wasn’t cheap of course, and everyone knew that new technology had bugs in it. But hey, why not let the rich be the guinea pigs for once? Fast-forward a year, and the one percent began dying en masse. The nanobots had evolved to view ageing as a virus, and were reacting by shutting down the host. Swathes of the population were infected before the government rolled out a treatment program, in the midst of riots and mass unrest. Meanwhile, the nanomachines spread like wildfire, infecting and killing millions. The remains of the government had no choice but to detonate a series of experimental weapons in the atmosphere, producing an EMP effect which rendered almost all electronic devices on Earth useless. Bradley is one of the survivors. A former veterinarian, he decides to escape his burning city and trek deep into the Maine wilderness, aiming to find his estranged father’s old lake house. Remembering lessons learned and long forgotten, Bradley endeavors to survive on his own terms, and be self-sufficient in a new and altogether darker world. But his struggle has only just begun. This is the first book in K. M. Fawkes’ Enter Darkness series, a post-apocalyptic EMP series of books.

Voyage of the Dead


David P. Forsyth - 2012
    Most of them are aboard a ship that is well equipped to survive the end of civilization, while others struggle to survive in a world suddenly overrun by undead cannibals. This is a science fiction adventure set within a horror genre, full of blood, guts, violence and the human emotions that fuel our survival instincts.This is the first novel by David P. Forsyth. At least two more books in the Sovereign Spirit Saga will be released this year.

The Eden Plague


David VanDyke - 2012
    Who is the man he kills, the woman he shoots, and what is the Eden Plague? Fleeing the shadowy Company, Daniel turns to fellow soldiers. He fights back, seeks the woman, and wants answers. A secret threatens world stability and a conspiracy could change everything.