Book picks similar to
The End Begins by James D. Dean


zombies
horror
zombie
post-apocalyptic

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.

The Dead Years - Volume 1


Jeff Olah - 2013
    No one was. He now needed to get to his family before the infection did.No one knew how or where the end of the world started.The infection took hold quickly and destroyed everything in its path. Millions perished every hour. For those who survived the initial outbreak, finding a safe haven would prove to be a battle all its own.Mason, along with his family and new found friends struggle to avoid the infected and find a way out of the city.In this initial 76 page volume of The Dead Years you will be introduced to the main characters as they fight the ravenous creatures trying to devour them and each other.

Protectors


Michael Robertson - 2018
    He needs more freedom than is given to the average citizen in Edin. He needs to win the next protectors' apprenticeship. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. And what is a life, no matter how safe, without love? Spike Johnson has enjoyed the freedom and safety of a youth living in Edin. The diseased hordes outside the city’s walls might as well be on the other side of the planet. He spends as much time as he can with his best friend, and the girl he loves, Matilda. But all of that’s about to change. Tomorrow, Spike turns eighteen. In two days' time, he has to go on national service and fight in the war against the diseased for six months. Only half the cadets come back alive. But he needs to do more than survive. Matilda is due to go on national service at the same time. Faced with the prospect of losing her life and her love, she also has to leave behind a little brother who needs her. A lot can go wrong in the six months she’ll be away for. For the average citizen, national service marks the end of freedom. For those who survive, their life becomes one confined to their home district. They work in their district, live in their district, and fall in love with someone from their district. Matilda is from a different district to Spike. Falling for someone from another district is the pursuit of protectors, politicians, and fools. Spike isn’t a fool and has no desire of becoming a politician. His only route to freedom is to win the next protectors’ apprenticeship. With just one cadet from every national service cycle being picked for the program, Spike is going to have to be better than all of those around him to stand a chance. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. Without Matilda, he has nothing. And with Matilda needing to get back to her brother as soon as she can, she can't increase their chances of success by fighting for the apprenticeship too. The battle for Spike's and Matilda's future happiness rests squarely on his shoulders. But before they get to that, they both need to make sure they survive ... Protectors is the first gripping book in the Beyond These Walls post-apocalyptic series. If you like breath-taking action with high-stakes, and characters who risk everything for freedom, then you’ll love Michael Robertson’s thrilling novel!!!

Exodus


Courtney McPhail - 2015
    A cataclysmic event, which would come to be known simply as The Infection, swept across the globe. The world population was decimated and civilization as it was known came to an end. All Malcolm Evans wants is to find his sister and her kids and get them some place safe. As an ex-CIA agent, he finds himself in the role of leader of a ragtag group of survivors heading to a promised sanctuary in the Great Lakes. Veronica Alpert spent her childhood preparing for the end of the world, thanks to her paranoid survivalist father. Little did she know that decades later, her father's eccentricities would prepare her and her siblings to survive in this new world...especially when tragic circumstances tear the family apart. Jackson Webber had always been seen as no good white trash. Good people crossed the road when they saw him coming. So, how he ended up saddled with the care of two orphaned girls, he had no damn clue. Last things these little girls need is a screw-up like him looking out for them. Course, at the end of the world, it ain't like they got many other choices.

First Activation


D.A. Wearmouth - 2013
    The trip takes a terrifying turn when they land in New York—this year’s destination—to find that JFK airport is almost deserted and that the few ground crew they can spot have all been brutally slaughtered. Is it a terrorist attack? Or something even more menacing? When a security guard appears and offers to help the passengers, but promptly shoots the first person off the plane and then kills himself, Harry realises that there is something very, very wrong in New York City.

Them Early Days - 2nd Prequel


Keith C. Blackmore - 2021
    Booze. Weapons. Armor. And any toilet paper he can find.It's been a rough time for Gus Berry. He barely survived the city of Annapolis as its population underwent a violent transformation, leaving everyone he knew or loved either dead or undead.Things aren't much better now, though. In fact, things might have become much worse. Living off the land, foraging for food, water, even medicine, and being able to adapt to a changing environment...it all takes a special individual, with an exceptional skill set and determination to survive. Gus Berry is not that individual. He need food. Booze. Weapons. Armor. He needs clothing that fits, and above all...he need toilet paper. Preferably two-ply. To get any of that requires him to do the one thing he can't face doing, and that's leaving his modern mountain fortress and returning to Annapolis, to the horrors that roam the streets, searching for the living.To make matters worse, winter looms, and he must get those much-needed supplies before the snow piles high and blocks the roads. Gus' only concern, then, will be maintaining his sanity.A second prequel novel to the Mountain Man survival horror zombie series. Contains violence and coarse language.

The Becoming


Jessica Meigs - 2011
    In the heart of Atlanta, Georgia, the Michaluk Virus has escaped the CDC, and its effects are widespread and devastating. Most of the population of the southeastern United States have become homicidal cannibals. As society rapidly crumbles under the hordes of infected, three people-Ethan Bennett, a Memphis police officer; Cade Alton, his best friend and former IDF sharpshooter; and Brandt Evans, a lieutenant in the US Marines-band together against the oncoming crush of death and terror sweeping across the world. As Cade, Brandt, and Ethan hole up in a safe house in Tupelo, others begin to join them in their bid for survival. When the infected attack and they're forced to flee, one departs to Memphis in search of answers while the others escape south to Biloxi, where they encounter more danger than they bargained for. And in Memphis, the answers that one man finds are the last answers he wanted, answers that herald a horrific possibility that there may be more to this virus than first suspected.

Fire


William Esmont - 2011
    No one knows what caused them to attack the living. Fighting for their lives, scattered survivors find the attempted cure to be almost worse than the disease.In the twilight of a shattered civilization, the fate of humankind rests upon the actions of a handful of war-weary survivors. Driven to a scorched corner of the former United States, they alone hold the key to a global reawakening.Or the final epitaph for a dead planet.

Madness


M.L. Banner - 2018
    Like a ticking bomb, this puppet master is patiently waiting for the right time to set off its hosts against the world. That time is now! A canceled flight due to a volcanic eruption and a violent animal attack at their port, almost cause Ted and TJ to miss their transatlantic cruise and a needed escape from their busy lives in the US. But there will be no peace or tranquility on this cruise as something is very wrong: animals have started to attack for no apparent reason. It will take Ted and TJ’s unique skills to not only survive their cruise, but to understand an apocalypse of madness which appears to have struck the whole world. With mammals outnumbering humans 10,000 to 1, is this the end? - - - - Early Reviews - - - “A fresh, unique, and exhilarating twist to the horror genre, but must warn readers that once they've picked the book up, they'll be hard pressed to set it back down. I loved it. Really, really well done!" ~ Readers Favorite “Shades of Zoo but scarier” “Put Patterson, King & Koontz together and then HIDE” “ML Banner is now in the ballpark with Michael Creighton” “One of the very best books I’ve read in this genre” - - - - The MADNESS Chronicles Trilogy - - - MADNESS: MADNESS Chronicles I (June 1st) PARASITIC: MADNESS Chronicles II (June 30th) SYMPTOMATIC: MADNESS Chronicles III (August 30th) Free content at MadnessWorld.Info

The First Days


Rhiannon Frater - 2008
    Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together. During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot. A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization. It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love…anything is possible at the end of the world.

Plague of the Dead


Z.A. Recht - 2006
    The infected are subject to delirium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate. Death. But it doesn't end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth. When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic. In one fell swoop, the necessities of life become much more basic. Gone are petty everyday concerns. Gone are the amenities of civilized life. Yet a single law of nature remains: Live, or die. Kill, or be killed. On one side of the world, a battle-hardened General surveys the remnants of his command: a young medic, a veteran photographer, a brash Private, and dozens of refugees, all are his responsibility-all thousands of miles from home. Back in the United States, an Army Colonel discovers the darker side of Morningstar virus and begins to collaborate with a well-known journalist to leak the information to the public... The Morningstar Saga has begun.

Highway: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival


John Q. Prepper - 2016
    For young Lexi Broadmoor and her brother Travis, the detonation not only took their father away, but their future as well. Now stranded on a highway far from home without any survival skills or someone to protect them, staying alive will depend on their wits, a single bug-out bag, and a map to a stranger's house. With the grid down and a nation quickly descending into chaos, they'll need to hurry, because the lawless are taking over. But a larger threat looms. A mysterious foe has set in motion a countdown to Armageddon; unknown to Lexi and Travis, they're part of the plan.

The Fall of Man


Jeff DeGordick - 2016
    Hordes of mindless, flesh-hungry zombies ravaged the world and left a bloody trail of death and ashes in their wake. Sarah survived that nightmare eight years ago with her son who was born on that fateful day. Now as they struggle to eke out a living in the apocalyptic ruins of Virginia, they hear word of a safe haven in the next state over. A place where she'll no longer have to wonder if her son will live to see tomorrow. There's just one problem. Standing between them and paradise is over a hundred miles of more than just the undead. Cannibals, lunatics, and murderous bandits prowl the landscape, searching for their next victims. But facing an impossible journey, Sarah may just have the ace that they need to make it: an unexplainable and frightening power her son possesses that will either turn the tide and deliver them to salvation or bring about their destruction and leave them to join the ranks of the dead...

The Dying of the Light: End


Jason Kristopher - 2011
    An elite Special Forces unit has known they exist for over a hundred years, and has been quietly and expertly keeping the monsters at bay… until now. The sole survivor of the massacre at Fall Creek joins this elite unit to combat the single greatest threat our world has ever known. Even as victories over the walkers mount, true evil still lurks in the hearts of men, and at the last, only a brave few may survive. A character-driven series similar to The Walking Dead on AMC, the first book, The Dying of the Light: End was a Top 5 Finalist in Kindle Book Review's “Best Indie Books of 2012” competition. The sequel, Interval, was a Top 5 Finalist in 2013. The final book in the series, Beginning is now available!

Rise of the Governor


Robert Kirkman - 2011
    Set in the world created by Robert Kirkman, this standalone trilogy is fast-paced, action-packed storytelling about the lengths some men will go to survive. With new characters, new storylines and with the same in-depth character-based plotting that has made the television series such an immediate hit, this trilogy of novels is sure to be a hit with those who love zombies and those who have loved the TV series and comic books.In the Walking Dead universe, there is no greater villain than The Governor. The despot who runs the walled-off town of Woodbury, he has his own sick sense of justice: whether it’s forcing prisoners to battle zombies in an arena for the townspeople’s amusement, or chopping off the appendages of those who cross him. The Governor was voted “Villain of the Year” by Wizard magazine the year he debuted, and his story arc was the most controversial in the history of the Walking Dead comic book series. Now, for the first time, fans of The Walking Dead will discover how The Governor became the man he is, and what drove him to such extremes.