Book picks similar to
Blood Veins by Brian Young


action-adventure
editor
indie-barely-read
non-erotic

Without Rhythm


P.S. Power - 2012
    Left to fend for herself, all hope gone, she happens upon a helpless woman being attacked and tries her best to stop it.Breaking a few laws in the process.Now she has a choice, either learn to be an apprentice Guardian until things settle down, or learn to survive on the streets.The decision is easy, since eating is far more pleasant than starvation, or so she assumes. Being a Guardian is a lot more than she bargained for however and with each passing day it become far more obvious that something is very wrong with the world.Because people have started to worship the technologies of the past, and as a Guardian, no matter how new, it's up to her to stop them.Before they destroy the world.

The Only Way Home


Jeanette Minniti - 2021
    Danger on the rails. A journey to save a family.It is 1933 inside a sweltering courtroom in Macon, Georgia. Fifteen-year-old Robert sits on a bench awaiting sentencing after being picked up for vagrancy and spending a night in jail. He left his home in Illinois with a neighborhood friend to ride the rails and find work to help their families. The friend turned back, too afraid to face the perils ahead. But going back empty-handed isn’t an option for Robert.THE ONLY WAY HOME is the story of one boy’s determination to survive loss and hardship to help his family — and how fate and a violin touch the course of his life.Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Sold On a Monday by Kristina Morris will love this story set during the Great Depression of a fatherless boy fighting to keep his family together.

Truth Insurrected: The Saint Mary Project


Daniel P. Douglas - 2014
    His informant turns out to be a guilt-ridden ex-operative in the Saint Mary Project, an ultra-secret program engaged in alien contact. The organization is wiping out loose ends, and Echo Tango thinks Harrison is the man he needs to stop it. Thanks to a gunshot wound suffered in an attempt to thwart an armed robbery, the crime-fighting life is something of Harrison’s past. He keeps his shooting skills sharp but walks with a limp, and he is more likely to catch marital cheaters than anything else—as a private investigator. But Harrison can’t shake the feeling that this case is meant for him. He enlists the help of colleagues and starts following the clues. However, hired guns stand between them and the truth. There are also alien-human hybrids to contend with, but that’s not all. Harrison’s investigation turns up a powerful secret about him and his family—a secret that may just be what lets him end these unimaginable crimes. Will Harrison discover and reveal the truth? Find out in Daniel P. Douglas’s thrilling UFO conspiracy novel Truth Insurrected: The Saint Mary Project.

The Ninth


Benjamin Schramm - 2014
    In the fallout of the devastation, a boy is found in the wreckage of a fortress from the Great War. The strongest of the Weavers, ones who can sense emotions in others, is dispatched to monitor the child. As the boy matures it becomes evident there is a dangerous power within him. Relocated to an academy on the edge of the Commonwealth, Brent is put to the test to determine if he is the greatest threat humanity has ever encountered. As his every move is observed and scrutinized he’ll have to face the exams of instructors, attempts on his life, and the wrath of the young Weavers.

No Ship for Tranquebar (Ring of Fire Press Fiction)


Kevin H Evans - 2013
    We are happy to offer this unitized edition.

Trust a Few


E.M. Swift-Hook - 2017
    But the past is hard to escape. The 'City has always been a dangerous place to live: now it's lethal. Not only are the crime lords exploiting its lawless streets, it is also the unwitting test bed for a sinister corporate technology. As Jaz tries to find an old friend who needs him, can a new ally help? Can he even be trusted? 'Trust A Few' is the first book in 'Haruspex', a tense new, sci-fi trilogy from Fortune's Fools.

Stowaway


Z.D. Dean - 2019
    A chance encounter, on his last mission, sends him hurtling through space on the Unity exploration ship XES01. Surrounded by aliens, Zade must quickly learn to interact with the non-soldiers on the crew. As he tries to earn his place amongst the ship, Zade’s combat prowess quickly earns him a spot as the security officer of the ship. A seat left vacant because of a fatal exchange between the former security officer and the wildlife of a far planet. As Zade begins living the adrenaline filled life of a space explorer, he has to ask himself some very important questions. How does he get back to earth? Does he even want to? Disclaimer: The main character is a combat veteran, so there is some rough language throughout the book.

Cold Trap


Jon Waskan - 2014
    Inexplicably, the explorer vanishes, and the object along with him. Nearby, the gears spin on a secret device, setting in motion a chain reaction that could avert a civilization-ending cataclysm. Known only to a select few, the machine must be protected.But watching from the shadows, a brilliant sociopath has plans of his own. . .____________________________________________AboutInspired by Crichton, Asimov, and Brown, “Cold Trap” has intense action, political intrigue, a deep central mystery, and a backdrop of science and high-tech gadgetry, a combination that is sure to resonate with fans of contemporary science fiction and techno-thrillers.____________________________________________ReviewsMelinda Hills for Readers' Favorite (5 Stars)"I really enjoyed the story! ... a well written tale of scientific discovery and political/economic maneuvering for world dominance ... Tremendous creativity and an in-depth look at exo-geology - the study of rocks and deposits on the surface of the moon and other 'space rocks' - create a realistic background for action involving the basic human emotions of love, greed, the desire for knowledge and the hunger for power."

Valor's Child


Kal Spriggs - 2017
    Jiden wants more for herself and she is ready to step into a bright future, one which may lead her far from the frontier world of her birth. She has no dreams of following in the footsteps of her military family's heritage, no desire to live a life of hardship.She's just got one obstacle in the path to her dreams: five months of military school. She'll be away from her friends, subjected to long hours and a crushing work load. She'll learn to shoot, to fight... and how to kill.Jiden will need every skill she's learned, because her family's enemies have put her in their sights. She's going to have to rise to the challenges in order to survive. She soon learns that her dreams might not be as good as she imagined. With her life on the line, Jiden will need to fall back on the skills she learned and prove that she's a child of valor.

The Last Builder


Simeon Graves - 2017
    We've spread to other galaxies and continue to thrive as a vast civilization. But calamity looms on the horizon. Little do our people know that a long-gestating killer, called The Keresian Virus, will soon decimate 99.99% of our population.  One of the few people aware of the government cover-up is Cutler Copeland. Not only is he immune to the virus, he's also a scout who's spent his life finding inhospitable planets with just the right attributes to facilitate terraforming into living ecosystems. But now, with his ex-wife dead, Cutler must return to Earth to fetch his teenage daughter, Kit, and somehow remain undetected by the government conspirators hellbent on stealing the secrets that will soon come into Cutler's possession.Will he succeed in reconnecting with his daughter, and get away just before the slaughter, or will his enemies track him down and use him for their own nefarious plans?P.S. Visit SimeonGraves.com to get a free copy of the never-to-be-published prequel to The Last Builder. ​

The Good Guys Chronicles: Books 4-6


Eric Ugland - 2020
    

Death Skies (Fire and Rust #4)


Anthony James - 2019
    Worlds will end. Humanity’s conflict with the Raggers shows no sign of ending. The aliens have no respect for the boundaries of war and they will attack any target, civilian or military. Luckily, the Unity League is in possession of stolen intel which points to the location of three of the enemy’s critical manufacturing planets. A huge fleet carrying thousands of nuclear bombs is sent to lay waste to everything. Captain Jake Griffin is with the fleet and in charge of a new heavy cruiser called Hurricane. Any hope that the Raggers would leave their primary facilities unguarded are soon dispelled and he finds himself in the middle of a brutal engagement in the skies of a world in flames. To add to the difficulties, a completely unexpected discovery makes things much more complicated. A distress call from the surface requires a deployment of troops. It’s Lieutenant Tanner Conway who is given the job. His mission leads to a top-secret research lab where the Raggers have been working on something new and unpleasant. Conway and his squad will be tested to the limit as they try to complete their mission and escape before the worst outcome imaginable becomes a reality. The universe holds many surprises and sometimes it’s best to remain ignorant… Death Skies is a fast-paced military sci-fi shooter filled with spaceships, guns, tech and warfare. It follows on from book 3 in the Fire and Rust Series: Havoc Squad.

The Obernewtyn Chronicles Omnibus, #1-6


Isobelle Carmody - 2015
    It was a time known as the Age of Chaos. In a final explosive flash everything was destroyed. The few who survived banded together and formed a Council for protection. But people like Elspeth-mysteriously born with powerful mental abilities-are feared by the Council and hunted down like animals...to be destroyed.Her only hope for survival to is keep her power hidden. But is secrecy enough against the terrible power of the Council? The Farseekers Since their takeover of Obernewtyn, the secret community of Misfits has flourished, protected by their remoteness. Led by Elspeth Gordie, whose extraordinary powers set her apart even among her Misfit friends, an expedition sets out to rescue a powerful Misfit in a distant part of the Land. Only she knows the enormity of their task. But for her is yet another challenge as she must fulfil her vow to find and dismantle the dormant deathweapons left by the Beforetimers.AshlingThe powerful farseeker Elspeth Gordie is sent to Sutrium, seat of the totalitarian council that rules the Land, to seal an alliance between the secret Misfit community at Obernewtyn and rebel forces. The journey takes her far beyond the borders of the Land, across the sea and into the heart of the mysterious desert region of Sador, where she seeks help to destroy the weaponmachines. But before her dark quest can begin, Elspeth must learn the truth of her dreams: she must understand why the Beforetimers destroyed their world ...The Keeping Place After a kidnapping, Elspeth Gordie and the Misfits are forced to join the rebellion against the oppressive Council, using their extraordinary mind powers. But Elspeth must also seek out clues left by the long-dead seer, Kasanda, vital to her quest to destroy the Beforetime weaponmachines. One clue is lost in the past, forcing Elspeth to travel the Dreamtrails, stalked by a terrifying winged beast, with the cat, Maruman, as her guide and guardian. Only there can she learn more of the Beforetimer Misfits and their enemy, Govamen. Gradually Elspeth realises that her quest is intimately linked to the Misfits' refuge Obernewtyn - its past and its future...The Stone Key There was a great crash and wood splintered . . . I had a brief glimpse of a group of Herder priests, bald and robed, peering at me, and then the sundered remnants of the locker door were torn aside and a rough hand reached in to haul me out by the hair. A Hedra captain stared into my face with eyes that burned with a fanatical fire above a thin nose and a lipless slash of a mouth. . .'You will die in great pain and very slowly, mutant,' said the Hedra master.When Farseeker Guildmistress Elspeth Gordie sets out from Obernewtyn to travel to Sutrium at the end of Wintertime, she quickly learns that not everyone welcomes the changes brought about by the rebellion. Capture by an old and vicious enemy, she is drawn into the heart of the Herder Faction, where she learns of a terrible plot to destroy the west coast.To stop it, Elspeth must risk everything, knowing that if she dies, she will never complete her quest to find the weaponmachines that destroyed the Beforetime.But if she succeeds, her journey will lead her to the last of the signs left for her by the seer Kasanda . . .The SendingIt came to me then, like a chilly draught from an unseen gap, that I had always known in my deepest heart that it would be like this, a slipping away from a life full of people I had come to love, in a place I had helped to shape, in a land I had helped to free.The time has come at last for Elspeth Gordie to leave the Land on her quest to find and stop the computermachine Sentinel from unleashing the deadly Balance of Terror arsenal. But before she can embark on her journey, she must find a lost key. And although she has long prepared for this day, nothing is as she anticipated.Elspeth's search will take her where she never thought to go, and bestow upon her stranger companions than any she ever imagined. It will lead her far from her destination to those she believed lost forever.And it will test her, as she has never been tested before . . .

Disperse: The Cesmial Accords: A LitRPG Gamelit Adventure


Kevin Sinclair - 2021
    Unhealthy for Lyewax, at least.It’s not every day that violent earthquakes cause a rare and potent energy to leak from the planet's core. One that immediately kills over half the world's population while gifting the survivors with incredible powers.That energy is Cesmial. One of the most highly sought-after resources in the universe. Its sudden appearance has attracted attention.Enter the monsters. Huge, fearsome creatures with one purpose. Remove the Earth’s current occupants, so the Cesmial can be harvested.Humanity is on the back foot. They need heroes. They need leaders. They need Lyewax Vix. But he has more problems than you can poke a stick at. Embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with an unknowable enemy. Trapped in a loop of someone else’s making. If he can survive, then perhaps humanity has a chance too.

Time Pebbles


Jerry Merritt - 2014
    Only Tekla cares enough to search for her over the years. As Ka Li survives fierce predators and scarce resources she leaves behind a series of signal cairns to help Tekla find her.Skipping forward 60,000 years, Helen Ryland, a mid-twentieth century archaeologist, unearths one of Ka Li's surviving signal cairns and realizes she has found trace of people who populated the Americas even before the Clovis culture. Helen's detective work tracking Ka Li's timeless signals across the Alaskan wilderness now intertwines with Ka Li's story. As Helen solves the puzzle of the signal cairns she finds universal fame and suffers devastating misfortune. In the end Helen discovers that science in isolation cannot answer all of her questions, for Tekla's devotion to Ka Li had not died even though six hundred centuries had passed.