Book picks similar to
Salazar by Chariss K. Walker


dystopian
paranormal
open-ended
fantasy

Alone at the End of the World


M.P. McDonald - 2020
     Thirteen-year-old Ethan should be practicing his skateboard moves, not watching his family members die, one by one. He knows he could become a victim of the evil infection at any minute. Scared and alone, he fills his backpack and goes in search of other survivors, hoping he lives long enough to find someone. Anyone. When Cassie sees the bodies of neighbors and strangers littering what had been pristine front lawns, she realizes her intense focus on business and family may have saved their lives. How does a single mom and her two kids survive an apocalypse alone? Noah emerges from his two-week fishing trip in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, shocked to learn that a devastating pandemic has swept the world. Should he venture into the fray to find other survivors or retreat into the woods and isolate himself as long as he can? When their paths converge, they face a new struggle ─ learning to trust total strangers as if their very survival depends on it... because it does. Sympatico Syndrome is intent on sparing no one.

Talented


Sophie Davis - 2012
    Talia Lyons has one goal at the McDonough School for the Talented: learn to use her Talent as a Mental Manipulator to kill the man who murdered her parents.Block out pain. She'll deal with anything. The brutal physical demands. The emotional toll. Whatever it takes to reach her objective.Block out friendship. With only one year left in the program, though, seventeen-year-old Talia is suddenly finding it harder than ever to ignore the rest of her life.Block out love.Even worse, she can't seem to turn off her psychic connection to her first love...or quit thinking about her fascinating new teammate.Feel only vengeance.Ian Crane. The man who destroyed Talia's life. The one she's determined to eradicate.Now focus.It's time to kill.THE TALENTED SAGA is a #1 Bestselling Dystopian Romance series about the life of a girl with extraordinary psychic powers, and what happens when a heart is torn between love and rage...

Families First: A Post-Apocalyptic Next World Series


Lance K. Ewing - 2019
    As the country descends into chaos and anarchy, one man makes an epic decision in order to save his loved ones and find a place of safety. From their home in McKinney, Texas, Lance prepares to lead his wife and three young sons, along with an assorted group of friends and neighbors, on a long and treacherous journey across the country, towards the only point on the map he can think of that will provide them with the security they need. Their journey promises to be long and arduous, and Lance will discover more about life than he ever thought possible as they find that desperate circumstances most often bring out the best, and sometimes the worst, in human nature. But the sprawling Saddle Ranch is in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and between them lies over 800 miles of harsh terrain, now filled with equally desperate, and oftentimes wretched, hostiles. Can Lance navigate a safe passage to the promise of a better life for them all? Or has he taken on much more than he bargained for?

Ashes, Ashes #1


Karyn Folan - 2016
    After a nuclear bomb levels Washington, DC, a teen embarks on a treacherous 200-mile trek through a harrowing wasteland populated by desperate survivors to get his disabled sister to safety.

This Body Won't Break: Part 1


Lea McKee - 2017
     Orphaned as a child, Joanna has lived her entire life in the care of the New Terra Alliance. On the verge of turning eighteen, Joanna eagerly awaits her release into what remains of society. It was a beautiful lie. Joanna was never meant to leave. She is part of the August Harvest, slated to die before the month’s end. With a rogue soldier’s promise to find her a way out, Joanna dares to hope. But if the NTA finds out what she knows, it won’t only be her own life at stake, but the life of the handsome soldier who has vowed to set her free. Fans of Divergent, The Darkest Minds, and The Handmaid’s Tale will love this dystopian story of twisted secrets, romance, and page-turning suspense. This Body Won’t Break is Book One of The O-Negative Series and will be published in 3 Parts (each approximately 25k words in length).

The Last Librarian


Brandt Legg - 2015
     In the year 2098, there is no more war, no more hunger and no more pollution. The world is secure and Earth’s 2.9 billion people are healthy and happy. There is also only one remaining library that still houses physical books. In addition to the dusty volumes, the library holds many secrets. But the government has decided to shut it down and burn the contents. Unless an unlikely trio can save the books, humanity will lose more than just what is printed on those antique pages. With a single government ruling the entire planet, one currency, one language and no religion, the population is unified and enjoying the prosperity that comes with more than seven decades of peace. Free healthcare for all and guaranteed employment make the future a dream. But this future may only be safe if they can hide the past. The books must be saved . . . the impossible task is up to an angry author, a brazen revolutionary and the last librarian. When everything is perfect, the only thing left to fear is the truth.

Countdown


Michelle Rowen - 2008
    She figures she can handle anything. Until she wakes up in a barren room, chained next to the notorious Rogan Ellis. 1 reason Kira will never, ever trust Rogan. Even though both their lives depend on it. Their every move is controlled and televised for a vicious exclusive audience. And as Kira's psi skill unexpectedly grows and Rogan's secrets prove evermore deadly, Kira's only chance of survival is to risk trusting him as much as her instincts. Even if that means running head-on into the one trap she can't escape. GAME OVER

Apocalypse Online


Robyn Wideman - 2021
    They just have to survive, level up and find other survivors.Jake is no gamer. But when he finds out aliens have arrived, he'll do anything to protect his little sister Sam.Will they be able to grow strong enough for the second wave or will they become alien plant food?APOCALYPSE ONLINE is a litrpg/gamelit post-apocalypse fantasy series filled with action, adventure, aliens and snarky AIs.If you are a fan of System Apocalypse, Defiance of the Fall, or the Sun Shadow series, you'll love Apocalypse Online!

Hero of the Alliance


Michael G. Thomas - 2015
    His skills are unique, enough to gain him a rare privilege. The chance to join five other Alliance cadets and escape the dull routine of the classroom. They will enter a fierce competition light-years away in the ancient Byotai Empire. Yet days after their arrival a rebellious faction begins a bloody mutiny that spreads like wildfire. The time for competition has ended; the time of war has begun. A handful of capital ships attempt to avoid the massacre, but only Relentless escapes. Nate and his friends are aboard, part of the few to make it out alive. Relentless is a heavily armoured assault ship, a relic from another age, but most of her crew members are dead or missing. Nate and his fellow cadets have to face the unthinkable. Under the guidance of Lieutenant Higgins, the ship's last fighter pilot, the six cadets have just days to practice operating the ship's fighters. There are no others. Only they can defend the ship, or face death at the hands of the enemy. Books in the Star Crusader series: Hero of the Alliance Knighthawk Squadron

Feed


Mira Grant - 2010
    We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.

The Last Girl


Joe Hart - 2016
    Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.

Departure


A.G. Riddle - 2014
    The world's past and future rests in the hands of five unwitting strangers. En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind. Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they've crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home? Five passengers seem to hold clues about what's really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw, the son of a billionaire philanthropist.As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they're letting on, answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past-to save our world... or end it.

The Trillionaire's Bartered Bride


Fiona Roarke - 2018
    Women have almost no rights and men hold all the power. The insidious influence of the oppressive Vanguard Group is spreading around the world and beyond. But while they can try to roll back the clock on social progress, they can’t control the human heart. Or the will to rebel. Emily Bryce was the quintessential self-made woman before the Vanguard Group imposed their archaic views on the country. First, the regime made it illegal for women to own businesses. Then, it forced them out of the working world. The latest blow saw Emily on the auction block, waiting to be sold into marriage to one of her former colleagues. Her humiliation was near complete. Cybernetically enhanced CEO Alek Westmore poured everything he was into building his multinational corporation, with not an ounce of help from his overambitious father. Then a business acquisition brought him a beautiful and brilliant female executive who made him think of much more than the bottom line. A million dollars was a very small price to pay to make her his bride. Alek is determined to be Emily’s hero. But can she ever love a secretive man who will stop at nothing to make her his own?

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.

The Murder Complex


Lindsay Cummings - 2014
    For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.