Book picks similar to
Black Days by Casey Glanders


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Heroic: The Golden Age


Evan Currie - 2021
    No once noticed. We were invaded. No one realized. We fought back. No one... cared. In the last moments before defeat, our enemy deployed a bioweapon, spreading an invisible pandemic to the winds.The world just wanted to go back to normal.A third of the population have the genetic code needed to activate the Quantum Virus. Billions of people, waiting to wake up one morning with powers. Abilities. Enhancements beyond that of mortal men.The aliens bet on us destroying ourselves in the ensuing madness, but not all humans revel in destruction. When Order and Chaos go to war, Chaos always wins in the short term... but heroes know how to play the long game.Looking back, will this be the beginning of the end, or the start of the Golden Age?

Killer Geezer


T. Jackson King - 2019
    Moments later he is able to set fire to one mugger, melt down a second, knife a third and knock out a fourth. All before 6 a.m.! Jack likes the psychic powers that are suddenly making him powerful and almost invulnerable. But are these powers natural or supernatural? And why did they come to him? Follow his adventures and his discovery the world is not as it seems to be!

The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3


Matthew Phillion - 2015
     In this other timeline, a few small decisions have led to a much darker and more tragic world, and the adult versions of themselves the Indestructibles meet—Solar, the Dancer, Straylight, Whispering, and Entropy Emily—are nothing like they expected. Are they heroes? Martyrs? Or perhaps even villains? And what happens when the young Indestructibles discover that the alternate future’s version of one of their own team has been turned into the very weapon that will be used to destroy the whole world? Can they team up with these darker versions of themselves to save an entire future? It's said that when you time travel, you can never come back the same. How will journeying through time change the Indestructibles? Will they ever be the same? The Entropy of Everything is the third book in the Indestructibles series.

Nova Academy: Heroes & Villains


Scott Olen Reid - 2017
    He's just fast enough and just strong enough - to get himself killed. Fortunately for Theo, he's also a super genius with a flair for building the advanced armor and weapons he needs to compete. Only it may not be enough for the trouble he finds in his first year at Nova Academy for Superhuman Studies.With his telepath girlfriend, Carly, Theo is forced to become a super and a hero before he is ready. (Not that he's sure he would ever want to be a hero, even when he is ready to be a super.)The two will need to become powerful and form a super team of fellow students if they want to stand up to the supervillains kidnapping Academy students. Itall becomes even more complicated when Carly turns Theo's understanding of the world of supers upside down; revealing the incredible secrets and history of telepaths since The Event that led to the creation of super powers for much of the planet's population.(Note there two covers for this book. The newer version has an updated cover to match the series cover theme.)If you enjoyed Nova Academy, please take a minute to leave a good review on Amazon.com! Every review makes a world of difference for an independent author. Thanks for reading and your support!

Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale


Sean Cummings - 2009
    Finding him should be an easy job for a guy with super-powers; too bad he keeps falling out of the sky. If Marshall Conrad has any hope of ending the killing spree, he’ll need a little help from a morbidly obese shop keeper (who just happens to be a witch) and a hard-drinking senior citizen with a penchant for lifting heavy objects… like auto- mobiles. Corrupt cops, ogres, thirty-six-year-old Siamese cats, and of course, the netherworld. All in a day’s work when you’re trying to save your city from a simmering evil that’s about to be unleashed.

Cowboy Ending


Adam Knight - 2013
    The police are at their wits end, the media is in an uproar and Joe is struggling to pay his bills as a Nightclub Bouncer. No stranger to violence or deception and dealing with shocking abilities, Joe becomes enmeshed in the case when he recognises one of the victims and is compelled to learn the truth.

Training in Necessity


J. Clevenger - 2015
    However, they each have two things in common, super powers and their recent admittance to the Citadel program. As members of the Citadel’s newest class of recruits, they will be taught to utilize their powers, and their bodies, to their utter limits. The Citadel’s mission is simple. Halt the world’s slow slide into ruin. They each have a part to play, but will it be enough?

NightShade Forensic FBI Files: Vol 2 (Books 5-7)


A.J. Scudiere - 2021
     Vol 2 - Books 5, 6, and 7 Salvage - A Shadow Files Novel Former marine turned Private Investigator, Walter Reed, has been given yet another strange and amazing opportunity: to become an agent with the FBI’s NightShade division. Though confident her training will make Quantico a cake walk—even with only one leg—Walter is discovering her shot at a new career has disaster written all over it. Her first hurdle? Walter doesn’t graduate training if her new partner GJ Janson doesn’t graduate, too… After previously being arrested by the FBI, GJ Janson hopes to redeem herself with the chance to become an agent. Unfortunately, her snooping around her grandfather’s laboratory reveals he’s been hiding strange skeletons—with strikingly similar anomalies to those she notices in her friend Donovan. When a weekend visit to her grandfather’s lab yields a fresh body, GJ goes into investigation mode. But the body is that of a fellow NightShade agent, and Walter and GJ quickly realize that nothing in NightShade is what it seems—not the case, the other agents, nor even their job descriptions. Only one thing is clear: the killer is coming after them next. And they suspect it’s someone GJ knows. Garden of Bone FBI Agent Eleri Eames was there the day her sister disappeared at eight years old. However, Eleri is the only one who knows that her sister is already dead and has been for quite some time. When a skeleton is unearthed in New Orleans, Eleri is convinced it belongs to Emmaline. The age and ancestry of the remains are a match, and there’s something telling Eleri that New Orleans is the place where her sister lived and died. As Eleri hunts for answers, demons—old and new—begin following her. The Lobomau have been entering the city in ever-increasing numbers, and that might just have something to do with the Dauphine sisters and their long family history of witchcraft and voodoo. Eleri desperately needs her partner Donovan on this case with her, but can he risk his own job to help her? Eleri’s ancestry may have imbued her with some powers, but compared to her own great-grandmother and the Dauphines, she’s untrained and untested at best. When the bones turn out not to belong to her sister, Eleri has to ask how a case so similar to Emmaline’s even exists…and is it an arrow pointed to her own twisted family history? The Camelot Gambit Can Eleri and Donovan outsmart a killer who leaves no evidence behind or even a discernable cause of death? How will they track down someone who is more intelligent than both of them together? Curie, Nebraska was designed as a research haven for the ultra-intelligent. In fact, applicants must pass a rigorous IQ test before they can call the strange town home. Nearly every resident—including several child geniuses—is suspect and no one is safe. Going undercover as the new neighbors leaves the agents struggling to find even the most basic clues. Eleri and Donovan can barely maintain their false identities against their overly-curious and stunningly intelligent new friends, let alone solve a murder. Can they figure it out before the next body turns up? Or has the killer already found them… “She’s in the top five of my best writers list.

Kill Your Heroes


Slade Grayson - 2021
    All he had to do was come up with a flashy costume, a signature gimmick, and commit a couple of high profile (yet nonviolent) crimes. Eddie figured he'd eventually get caught and spend a year or two in a minimum security prison. Then he'd write a tell-all book, do the talk show circuit, and parlay that into a regular TV hosting gig.But the best laid plans...As the Puzzler, Eddie was strictly a C List supervillain. He matched wits with Dark Revenger, a grim and gritty, street-level superhero. Eddie always managed to get away unscathed, but one night, things go horribly wrong and the Dark Revenger is dead. It's one thing to steal the Mona Lisa. But killing a world famous superhero? That's hard time with the worst of the worst.Most people would cash out, change their identity, and go on the run. But Eddie knows there's no running if you're responsible for the death of an A List superhero. The only chance Eddie has in staying out of prison, and staying alive, is to take the Dark Revenger's place and not let the rest of the world know the original is dead.Eddie can do it. He's got the physical ability and the tech savvy. He even looks good in the costume. It's the ultra-serious, crime-fighting part he has trouble with. (Seriously, does the Dark Revenger need to be so "dark" all the time?)Then the world's premiere superhero team, the Majestic 12, needs help with a seemingly impossible crime: One of their own has been murdered and they need "the world's greatest detective" (a.k.a. the Dark Revenger) to solve it.He's not the hero we need.He's not the hero we deserve.He's not really a hero at all.Kill Your Heroes

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Color Classics #1


Kevin Eastman - 1984
    Don't miss it!

Amped


Kevin Hardman - 2016
     A foundling adopted and raised by the Alpha League (the world’s greatest superhero team), Electra has exhibited super powers since infancy. However, her past has remained a mystery for the most part, with those few people with any knowledge of her background being reluctant to talk. Refusing to remain ignorant of her own origins, Electra embarks on a fact-finding mission intent on discovering who she really is. However, in addition to providing more questions than answers, her investigation causes her to cross paths with a powerful group of supervillains, who see in her a means of furthering their goal of world domination. Finding herself in the crosshairs, Electra must now find a way to stop those seeking to exploit her unique talents for their own nefarious purposes. Because if she can’t, the world will pay a heavy price.

Midnight Strikes


Tom Reynolds - 2018
     The world is still reeling from the devastation of the final battle between the world’s strongest metahumans. Empire City has been left in shambles as it struggles to rebuild. Overnight, the world’s metabands, mysterious bracelets that offer their owner’s superhuman powers and abilities, have all ceased working. Guilt ridden over his possible hand in all of this, the masked vigilante Midnight has hung up his cowl. Instead of fighting crime, he now spends his sleepless nights searching for clues to recover the device that might be responsible for all of it before it can fall into the wrong hands. Along the way he meets Amanda Khan, a teenage girl with a metahuman history in search of her missing friend. Both find the clues to what they’re both searching for lead them to The Receptive, a secretive cult which offers a path to meta humanity to its most loyal followers and may just hold the answers to the missing device. Don't forget to check out the other books in the Meta series, including Meta, The Second Wave and Rise of The Circle.

Tough Guy: A Superhero LitRPG Adventure


Andrew Karevik - 2021
    It’s clear, from the get-go, that this villain is a poor schmuck who just happened on a dose of ChemX, and then decided to get paid moments after he developed his superpower.And so, in an attempt to save the poor bastard from the consequences of his foolish actions, Arthur tries to convince him to surrender. But when the caped cavalry arrives, something happens and Arthur is exposed to a leak of the mysterious chemical substance.Soon, he finds himself unlocking his first superpower: extreme Toughness. Unfortunately, superpowers do not pay the rent, and he still has to juggle four jobs to make ends meet. Worse, as was explained to him by a superhero dispatched to the crime scene, his transformation is reversible, due to his method of exposure. And Arthur will be reversed to his former self if he doesn’t prove himself worthy of the gift.To do that, he will have to take part in the famed Combine—aka the Meatgrinder. He will have to join the trials to be accepted in one of the most famous superhero guilds in Eon City: Heroes United. Success means he can keep his powers (on top of a hefty payday.) Failure means he’ll get dechemed and reverted back to his lousy and broke self.If he is to have any kind of chance to prevail, Arthur must level up his skills and gain new abilities. But what is a rookie meta like him to do? As an unregistered hero, he doesn’t even have access to the law enforcement channels warning of villain attacks. And so he starts scouring the streets of Eon City, as a vigilante, with a ski mask to conceal his identity and his ability to endure the most extreme of punishments for sole help.

Team Omega


Christopher G. Nuttall - 2015
     Superhumans! They fly through the skies like gods; superhumans, men and women who have gained extraordinary powers. Some are celebrities, some rule entire countries, some just try to lead normal lives … and some are criminals. Jackson McDonald, USMC, fought and killed a superhuman who threatened to tear Camp Pendleton apart. His reward is to be invited to join Team Omega, an elite black-ops military unit tasked with dealing with rogue superhumans. But one superhuman has plans. He will save the world, even if it doesn’t want to be saved… And no matter who tries to stop him.

Tombstone Jack and the Wyoming Raiders


Dan Winchester - 2018
    The ground is littered with the dead, but he finds one survivor, a woman named Bridget Decker. Jack gets her to a doctor in Cheyenne. He discovers the Wyoming Raiders, a band of outlaws, are the ones who attacked the wagon, and they want to make sure there are no witnesses. And now the Raiders know about Jack, too.Who will survive the deadly showdown?This is the third novelette in the Tombstone Jack series. It's 15,300 words of traditional western action designed to be read in one sitting. Enjoy! Don't miss the other Tombstone Jack adventures: Tombstone Jack Tombstone Jack and the Redwing Saloon