It's the End of the World! Post Apocalypse Recommendations by author Jessica E. Subject

 

Lately, I have been reading books and watching shows and movies that are set in a post-apocalypse world. I have enjoyed these stories for a long time, and have always been thankful that I do not currently live in a world like these, as I don't think I would survive. I would be the character who dies early on from helping another person or animal to survive. That's just who I am. 

I also recognize that many people have lived, or are currently living in apocalyptic situations we only read about or watch in fiction. Their worlds have been changed forever due to colonization, racism, war, famine, industrial pollution, climate change, homophobia, transphobia, along with many other factors.

In the book I recently finished and loved, the apocalypse is caused by a virus, set loose by a cult to bring about the end of the world, that turns people into unspeakable monsters. HELL FOLLOWED WITH US by Andrew Joseph White is told from the points of view of a teenage trans boy and a young autistic man. It was a fabulous read, and I highly recommend it!

The book I'm currently reading, AT THE END OF EVERYTHING by Marieke Nijkamp, a respiratory virus is spreading throughout several US states, and in its wake, authorities abandon a group of teens at a juvenile treatment center. The story is told from the points of view of several of the teens throughout their realization that they were abandoned, and their struggle to survive. I'm really enjoying this one as well! And I love the diversity of the points of view!

When it comes to movies and television, the series that I recently streamed and HIGHLY RECOMMEND is BLACK KNIGHT. As soon as I saw the preview for this, I knew I had to watch it. A comet has hit the Earth, and killed many people. On the Korean peninsula, only 1% of the population has survived, but air pollution is still a huge problem. The series focuses on 5-8, part of an elite delivery service that battles rough terrain and pirates while delivering food, oxygen, and other supplies to the districts of container houses.I really, really loved this six-episode show!!

I've also recently watched RESIDENT EVIL, the 8-episode series based on the video game about a zombie virus. It goes back and forth in time between Jade and Billie first arriving in New Raccoon City, to several years in the future. This was a great series, and while I'm not good at playing video games, it did prompt me to watch the movies.

And I just finished streaming both seasons of BLACK SUMMER earlier this week. It's another zombie apocalypse show, and goes back and forth between characters, some of which make it to the end of the episode, and others who don't. I'm not sure what I thought of this show, but I couldn't stop watching it. LOL

I have a zombie apocalypse romance story, and a dystopian romance series of my own. In all of them, the characters are struggling to survive and to love who they want.

IT TOOK A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Home for the summer, RJ heads to the annual fun fair to see if his hot neighbor has also returned from university. When he spots her at the kissing booth, he can’t believe his luck. But even though she never spewed racial slurs at him like the rest of the community, will she grant him a kiss?

Missy is tired of the blatant prejudice she’s seen all her life. If not for her brother’s plea for help, she never would have returned to the small town of West Vitula. When the guy she’s had a crush on since grade school asks for a kiss, she knows it will piss off her parents and leave the entire town talking.

After one kiss, RJ wants another, but a sudden zombie outbreak puts him and Missy on the run. To stay alive, they must learn who they can trust. And even if they can trust each other.

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK

THE COMPLETE UNDERGROUND SERIES

In the future…

The corporation Planet Core holds all of the power. They place restrictions on the lives of those living within their boundaries, including who they can love. And there is no escape.

Deception runs deep…

The rebel group, calling themselves The Underground, is disputing the corporation’s leadership. With the desire for freedom, they will fight.

And betrayal can come from anyone…

Will the rebels defeat Planet Core, or end up fighting for their lives?

Includes: Never Gonna Let You Go, Never Gonna Desert You, and Never Gonna Say Goodbye

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK

Do you have any post-apocalypse book, movie, or television show recommendations for me?

Finding Mercy out December 22nd

Good morning. I’ve been dying to tell you about my upcoming release, out December 22nd.

When asked by my publisher to develop a mini-series for their new Prepper line, I found my inspiration close to home.  My home town of Alliance, Nebraska became my model for the town of Evans Point, Wyoming. Why Alliance?

In the 1940’s, the Army built an Airfield about three miles outside of the little blink and miss it town of Alliance. Overnight, with the combination of workers from Kansas City and the Black Hills, the population exploded to over ten thousand people. The airfield was used to train fighter pilots, and with the United States at war, they were conscious of possible air raids. So the Army Corp of Engineers built a bomb shelter underneath the town.

It remains there to this day, and only the locals who’ve been around for a while are aware of it.

This shelter led me to several what if. What if several tornados level a small community, one like Alliance with an old shelter, mostly forgotten until disaster strikes. What if those that stay and rebuild, decide to refurbish the old shelter, so that they will be better prepared for future disasters.

Evans Point was born and from that community of preppers, Finding Mercy found its plot.

A note from Heather Bennett at Decadent Publishing about the new Prepper line:

"I saw the trends concerning prepping and new homesteading on television, Facebook, and in stores like CostCo and on Amazon. After decades of suburbanization, and major disasters highlighting our intense vulnerability, people have again found the desire to learn 'the old way'. Self reliance, prepping, homesteading is really just taking the old and making it popular again. It's what our grandparents did, and every generation before them.

 

Decadent Publishing decided to give this group a voice in the romance genre. We want to entertain our readers and show that preppers are your neighbors, your pastor, the guy who works on your car. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. People are emailing and posting, saying,"I'm a prepper! I can't wait to read this!", "We're hardcore preppers. I'm writing a story for this!" It's fantastic and we hope people enjoy not only the prepper bits, but the overall story, as well. The ones that have come in are really very good."

Blurb: 

You’ll die in three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food. But could you survive a lifetime with a broken heart?

Mercy Evans has come to Evans Point hoping to collect herself and find a way to resurrect her career as an anchorwoman for Cheyenne’s news station. Sergeant Justin Redway has come to Evans Point to try to forget his past and survive what he’s done.

When two worlds collide, one of a battle damaged veteran, the other of a desperate woman who will go to any extreme to get his story, sparks fly and old wounds open. When the chasm between the fated lovers widens, it just might be too big to cross.

One town, two lovers and a second chance at finding mercy.

Excerpt:

Evans Point, Wyoming

June 28th, 2010

It looked like the end of the world. Will Evans tightened his grip on Bear’s and Sadie’s leashes and tuned in for any cries for help. The fresh smell of rain mixed with the industrial stink of spilled fuel and the ozone from a nearby lightning strike pounded reality home.

Even though they’d merely begun, his bones ached. Fifteen years before, he would’ve torn through the wreckage and pulled out survivors without hesitation. Now, he could only look over the destruction and fight the tears that tugged on his eyes. The scene brought back another time he couldn’t stomach, when he’d seen the Grim Reaper rip a hole between life and death, as he’d done this day.

The storms had hit with ferocity, in the middle of the night, without warning. The roaring of the beast had woken some, but not all. Those alerted had rushed for cover in their basements and cellars and now searched for those who were not as lucky. This was all that remained of the downtown after six tornadoes had torn through Evans Point. In all his eighty-four years, Will had seen only one other battlefield like it.

He swallowed and searched his soul for courage. There would be bodies among the rubble, but hopefully, there would also be living. He had to believe to continue, even though he found his faith tested.

So much carnage. Scanning the brightening horizon, he took in the destruction. Brick buildings were blown apart. Vehicles lay on their rooftops, dripping gasoline and other fluids. Even a pickup had been skewered on a flagpole like one of the carousel horses he’d ridden as a child at the fairground. A toy truck lay at his feet, its red paint bright and clean like it was fresh from the box.

His gaze shifted to the left. Someone’s farm equipment sat on top of a local bridal shop. The five-hundred-thousand-dollar harvester would have to come down in pieces, which meant it would remain there for a while. No one would be able to get a crane into the area for months. It all seemed so overwhelming, and he didn’t have a clue where to start.

But his dogs did.

“All right, we got work to do.” Will squeezed the hooks with his gnarled fingers, unclipping Bear and Sadie, letting them do what they did best. Since he’d retired, he’d taken up breeding, raising, and training the Caucasian Shepherds. The dogs originally belonged to a friend who had worked search and rescue in Alaska, but when he’d retired and moved to Florida, he hadn’t wanted to drag the double-coated dogs to Miami, where they’d suffer from the heat.

Not that Wyoming didn’t have hot summers; it did, but they were shorter. When Will had taken the pair on, he’d discovered they made great cattle dogs, and why not? The Caucasian Mountain Shepherds were herding dogs, highly intelligent, possessing giant personalities to go with their enormous size. And the bonus? Mountain lions and wolves thought twice about going after his stock.

Bear barked and dug at a pile of debris that led to a basement entrance of an old bomb shelter under the downtown area. Will picked his way around the rubble, careful where he stepped.

The glass blocks embedded in the sidewalk, part of the old reinforced structure the Army had left behind in the forties, were still intact, and the structure below hadn’t collapsed. An idea woke in his head. Why hadn’t they used it before?

“Hey, over here,” he called out to a couple of firefighters as he tossed a two-by-four to the side. He wouldn’t be much help lifting the wreckage away, but he’d do what he could, and what he could do was get everyone together and make sure this didn’t happen again. Those who lost their lives here would be the last to die because they hadn’t been prepared.

So, the day after doomsday, I hope you’ll check out my newest release. I’ll have the buy links up on my website www.authordljackson.com. To check out the call for submissions, please stop by, Decadent Publishing Prepper Line.

Thanks for stopping by,

D L Jackson