Book picks similar to
An Excess Of... by Stuart Aken


survival
romance
speculative
multistarrer

The Moon Hunters


Anya Pavelle - 2019
    A group of survivors finds an island sanctuary.Three generations later, no one has heard from the outside world in years. The old radio only crackles with static. The Pestilence either finished its job or the world tore itself apart.In the Village of Lehom, Leilani has been called to court as a Virtue by the King. Going to court means losing her independence and self-respect. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a choice.Leilani decides to take a stand; the King be damned. She plans a daring escape and sets in motion a series of events that will shake the foundation of her village and the island to its core.

Retrotopia


John Michael Greer - 2016
    Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-US America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums—but one of the new nations, the Lakeland Republic of the upper Midwest, has gone its own way, isolated from the rest by closed frontiers and trade embargoes. Now Peter Carr, an emissary from the newly elected administration in the Atlantic Republic, boards a train to cross the recently reopened border into Lakeland territory on a mission that could decide the fate of his nation. Ahead of him lies a cascade of experiences that will challenge his most basic assumptions about economics, politics, and the direction history is moving. Alone among the post-USA republics of North America, the Lakeland Republic has achieved prosperity and internal peace, and it’s done so by modeling its future… …on the past.

Long Road to Survival: The Prepper Series (Book 2)


William H. Weber - 2015
    With deadly clouds of radiation swooping in from the wasteland of American port cities, Paul Edwards and his father-in-law Buck seek shelter in a spectacular government bunker, the likes of which has never been seen. They've succeeded in finding safety from the dangers outside, but in a world without rules, trust can be a deadly thing.

All the Tomorrows


Nillu Nasser - 2017
    Sometimes we are the architects of our own fall.Akash Choudry wants a love for all time, not an arranged marriage. Still, under the weight of parental hopes, he agrees to one. He and Jaya marry in a cloud of colour and spice in Bombay. Their marriage has barely begun when Akash embarks on an affair. Jaya cannot contemplate sharing her husband with another woman, or looking past his indiscretions as her mother suggests. Cornered by sexual politics, she takes her fate into her own hands in the form of a lit match.Nothing endures fire. As shards of their past threaten their future, will Jaya ever bloom into the woman she can be, and will redemption be within Akash’s reach?

The Whirlwind Rescue


Ginny Sterling - 2020
    She’s fascinated with the idea of being able to live in paradise and the peace it brings to her soul. Sand, sun, flowers, and gentle warm rain – it’s supposed to be the idyllic life. When a hurricane threatens the island, she is rescued by her ex-boyfriend, Gavin Tanner. Gavin knows that when the storm hits, it’s his job to save the lives of the people who’ve been stranded among the chaos that nature delivers abruptly. When he comes face-to-face with the woman who once broke his heart, he realizes that the buildings around him aren’t the only things that were destroyed by a strong female. Hurricane Dottie is nothing compared to the wrath of his beloved Natalie! Will these two strong personalities handle the influx of emotions, as well as the surge of water, that threatens them? Can they set aside their differences and work together in order to survive the onslaught around them? Step into the world of Disaster City Search and Rescue, where officers, firefighters, military, and medics, train and work alongside each other with the dogs they love, to do the most dangerous job of all — help lost and injured victims find their way home.

Blackbird


Anna Carey - 2014
    When a nameless girl wakes up on the subway tracks, she knows only one thing for sure: people want her dead. Can she find them before they track her down? This pulse-pounding contemporary thriller is perfect for fans of The Maze Runner, The Darkest Minds, and Legend.Things I Know Are True: I am in Los AngelesI woke up on the train tracks at the Vermont/Sunset stationI am a teenage girl I have long black hairI have a bird tattoo on the inside of my right wrist with the letters and numbers FNV02198People are trying to kill me

Survivor: World of Monsters


Michael Brightburn - 2019
    But when the biggest movie star of this generation wakes up in an unfamiliar jungle without his Range Rover or even a single one of his assistants, he'll have to draw on his childhood as a boy scout if he's to have any chance of surviving. There's just one problem: he was never actually a boy scout, he only played one on TV. This is a story about alien worlds and the end of the world, monster girls and straight-up monsters, and how by losing it all, one man can become something greater than he ever could have imagined.

Never Let Me Go (Screenplay)


Alex Garland - 2010
    In it he posed the fundamental question: What makes us human? Now director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo), writer Alex Garland and DNA Films bring Ishiguro's hauntingly poignant and emotional story to the screen. Kathy (Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, An Education), Tommy (Andrew Garfield, Boy A, Red Riding) and Ruth (Oscar nominee Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) live in a world and a time that feel familiar to us, but are not quite like anything we know. They spend their childhood at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. When they leave the shelter of the school and the terrible truth of their fate is revealed to them, they must also confront the deep feelings of love, jealousy and betrayal that threaten to pull them apart.

Furious: Sailing into Terror


Jeffrey James Higgins - 2021
    Dr. Dagny Steele is on the verge of fulfilling her lifelong calling to become a pediatric surgeon when the sudden death of her daughter sends her into a crushing depression. Grief stricken and desperate to heal, she takes a leave of absence and sails across the Indian Ocean with her husband. Dagny begins to recover from her tragic loss when her voyage turns into a nightmare. Isolated and hunted at sea, can she survive a deadly crucible?

Bloodlands


Daniel Pierce - 2019
     Threaded with silver through his body, he is a Bonemaker-- a rare human who can Unmake vampires with a single cut of his blade. Crossing the prairie of what was once the United States, Turner will face a blood-crazed cult, a governor who wants power more than life itself, and a trio of beautiful women who will help him toward his ultimate goal: ridding the world of bloodsuckers. There's just one problem. Turner's exploits have attracted a vampire so old, his very existence threatens what remains of the human race. Extinction is upon us.

Treachery in Death / New York to Dallas 2-in-1 Collection


J.D. Robb - 2015
    D. Robb Treachery in Death Eve Dallas and her partner, Peabody, are following up on a brutal, senseless crime—an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. And for the first time, Peabody is primary detective on the case, which means she has to get used to a new level of authority and responsibility. Good thing she learned the ropes from a master like Eve.But after rounding up the perps, Peabody stumbles upon a much trickier situation. Determined to start working out as hard as she grills suspects, she chooses to do it at the old, rarely-used gym at Central. After a grueling workout, she squeezes into one of the narrow shower stalls, happy to have the place to herself. Just after she shuts the water off, the gym door clatters open—and while she cringes inside the stall, trying not to make a sound, Peabody overhears two fellow officers, Garnet and Oberman, arguing. References are made to delivering product, and a house in the islands, and someone named Keener who’s supposed to look like an OD. It doesn’t take long for a naked and vulnerable Peabody to realize that both officers are crooked—guilty not just of corruption but of murder as well. Fortunately, the two clear out of the locker room without realizing there was a witness.Eve Dallas may have trained Peabody well—but this is too dangerous for one person to take on alone. Now Peabody, Eve, and her husband, Roarke, must try to get the hard evidence they need to bring the dirty cops down—knowing all the while that the two have already killed to keep their secret, and are no doubt willing to do it again. New York to Dallas It was one of Eve Dallas’s earliest takedowns, back in her uniform days. A monster named Isaac McQueen had been abducting young victims and leaving them scarred in both mind and body. Thanks to Eve, he wound up where he belonged, removed from civilized society in Rikers. But he’s not behind bars anymore.After his escape, McQueen has two things in mind. One is to take up where he left off, preying on the young and innocent—when necessary, with the help of a female partner all too willing to be manipulated and to aid and abet his crimes. His other goal: to get revenge on the woman who stopped him all those years ago, now a high-profile lieutenant in the NYPSD and married to one of the city’s richest men.Commanding Eve’s attention with a chilling and brazen crime, McQueen sets off the chase—forcing Eve down a road marked with blood and tears, a road that eventually leads southwest to Dallas, Texas, the home Eve fled long ago. And each new twist brings her closer to the harrowing memory of when she wasn’t a hardened detective but a vulnerable girl just like McQueen’s innocent prey. As her husband, Roarke, tries to rescue her from the nightmares that claw at her mind, and her partner, Peabody, doggedly works to support her, Eve must confront—and call upon—the darkest parts of her own soul in order to survive.

Resisting the Sheik's Commands


Elizabeth Lennox - 2019
    What was even more shocking was when he tells her that her country, her precious Ditra, is in danger. In order to prove him wrong, she travels with him to Ditra, only to discover that things are worse than either of them knew. With the dangerous but alluring Sheik Jabril at her side, Ilara tries to figure out a way to stop her destructive uncle. Unfortunately, the only option is so outrageous, she rejects it immediately. But…it really is the only way! Be seduced by this story of passion and hope, despair and excitement!

The Dazzle of Day


Molly Gloss - 1997
    Molly Gloss turns her attention to the frontiers of the future, when the people of our over-polluted planet Earth voyage out to the stars to settle new worlds, to survive unknown and unpredictable hardships, and to make new human homes. Specifically, it is a story about people who have grown up on a ship that is traveling to a new world, and about the society and culture that have evolved among them by the time they arrive at their new home planet.

The Curiosity


Stephen P. Kiernan - 2013
    Kate Philo and her scientific exploration team make a breathtaking discovery in the Arctic: the body of a man buried deep in the ice. As a scientist in a groundbreaking project run by the egocentric and paranoid Erastus Carthage, Kate has brought small creatures-plankton, krill, shrimp-"back to life." Never have the team's methods been attempted on a large life form.Heedless of the consequences, Carthage orders that the frozen man be brought back to the lab in Boston, and reanimated. As the man begins to regain his memories, the team learns that he was-is-a judge, Jeremiah Rice, and the last thing he remembers is falling overboard into the Arctic Ocean in 1906. When news of the Lazarus Project and Jeremiah Rice breaks, it ignites a media firestorm and massive protests by religious fundamentalists.Thrown together by circumstances beyond their control, Kate and Jeremiah grow closer. But the clock is ticking and Jeremiah's new life is slipping away. With Carthage planning to exploit Jeremiah while he can, Kate must decide how far she is willing to go to protect the man she has come to love.A gripping, poignant, and thoroughly original thriller, Stephen Kiernan's provocative debut novel raises disturbing questions about the very nature of life and humanity-man as a scientific subject, as a tabloid plaything, as a living being: A curiosity.

The Grace Year


Kim Liggett - 2019
    It’s forbidden.In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.