The Darkness After Series
The Darkness After is a post-Apocalyptic novel set in the same, anarchy-ruled world of my first novel, The Pulse. Most of the action takes place in the backwoods of south Mississippi, after the main characters make their way out of a blacked-out New Orleans.
After the publication of The Pulse in 2012, I began this parallel story with a different set of characters facing the same chaos and danger caused by the complete shutdown of the power, communication and transportation grid in North America. Mitch and April, the two main characters here, are both in their late teens, and both have strong motivation to get where they're going and unique skills to help them survive against staggering odds. Mitch is a hunter, obsessed with the woods in the same way that I was when I was his age, escaping school and confinement at every opportunity to spend time in the wild. April is a city girl, but a tough one who's been on her own since losing her parents. No one would guess from looking at her, but she's also deadly at hand-to-hand combat, having mastered the techniques of Kenpo taught to her by her Dad over many years before his passing.
As a team, Mitch and April are unstoppable in their quest to get to the ones depending on them for survival.
Series Prequel: ENTER THE DARKNESS
AMERICA IS PLUNGED INTO DARKNESS WHEN MASSIVE SOLAR FLARES DESTROY THE GRID.
Enter the Darkness is a prequel novella to The Darkness After Series, an ongoing tale of survival, adventure and romance set in the aftermath of the breakdown of civilization.
Two teenagers from completely different worlds are destined to meet when they are suddenly stranded in New Orleans, cut off from their loved ones and forced to adapt to a life without technology or law and order. Sixteen-year-old Mitch Henley sets out on foot to walk out of the city and return to the backwoods farm where his game warden father taught him how to live off the land. April Gibbs is at home in the city but her loved ones are stranded more than a hundred miles to the north with no way to get back. The two young strangers escape the urban chaos amid fear, looting and anarchy, unaware that they are on a collision course that will change everything for both of them.
Enter the Darkness opens with the events of the early morning in March when the pulse from the solar flare strikes, leaving people everywhere confused, afraid and in the dark. The Darkness After Series currently includes: The Darkness After (Book 1), Into the River Lands (Book 2), The Forge of Darkness (Book 3) and The Savage Darkness (Book 4).
Book One: THE DARKNESS AFTER
TWO TEENAGERS FIGHT TO SURVIVE IN AN AMERICA GONE DARK
When massive solar flares send an intense electromagnetic pulse to Earth, every electrical device is fried instantly. The modern world that sixteen-year-old Mitch Henley has always known comes crashing down.
Anarchy, looting and chaos explode all around him. Stranded in New Orleans, Mitch escapes into the Mississippi backwoods he knows so well, hoping to stay alive using the survival and hunting skills he learned from his game-warden father.
Alone and on foot, Mitch sets out to make his way back to the family farm and his younger sister. Not knowing if his parents are dead or alive, nothing else matters . . . until he meets April Gibbs along the way.
Smart, beautiful, lethal and alone, April is also making a treacherous trek to find her lost family. They decide to travel together for safety, but neither can begin to imagine the danger that awaits them on the road and in the woods.
Set in the same anarchy-and-desperation-reigned world of the author’s dystopian thriller: The Pulse, The Darkness After a frightening look at how fragile our technologically dependent lifestyle really is.
Book Two: INTO THE RIVER LANDS
Survival in a world of evolving chaos
The grid has been down for seven months now, and law and order has completely given way to anarchy and violence.
Seventeen-year-old Mitch Henley has returned to his family’s backwoods homestead to avoid the dangers of the cities and towns and look after his little sister while they wait hopefully for their parents’ return.
Putting to use the survival skills he’s learned from his father, veteran game warden, Doug Henley, Mitch is holding his own, at least until he crosses paths with trespassing poachers in the river land forests that surround the Henley farm.
Following a trail that ends on the banks of Black Creek, Mitch finds something completely unexpected.
Once again, he will be forced to unleash his deadly arrows, stalking a band of killers who have taken a girl he thought he would never see again.
Into the River Lands is the second book set in the desperate, grid down world of the Darkness After Series, the story of a group of teens and young adults fighting to survive in a world gone dark.
Book Three: THE FORGE OF DARKNESS
The lights are still out, and death and destruction arrive at the gate.
Just as Mitch Henley is reunited with April Gibbs, a friend he’d never expected to see again, more trouble arrives at the remote Henley farm in the form of murderous raiders on horseback.
Outnumbered and surrounded, Mitch and his friends must outwit their attackers and somehow prevail.
Nothing has been easy in their struggle to survive the collapse of the grid, but determination has kept them alive. Will Mitch’s skill match the challenge of this new test?
The Forge of Darkness is the third book set in the desperate, grid down world of the Darkness After Series, the story of a group of teens and young adults fighting to survive in a world gone dark.
Book Four: THE SAVAGE DARKNESS
Ruthless marauders leave Mitch Henley and his band of survivors homeless.
When the remote Henley homestead is burned to the ground in a brutal attack, Mitch and his friends bury their dead and move to a deep woods hideaway where survival becomes a struggle against raw nature.
But they are soon faced with another crisis that requires something that can only be found in the ruins of the towns and cities. Taking a single companion, Mitch embarks on a perilous quest into dangers unknown.
The others wait and wonder if he will return, while in his absence an unexpected visitor tracks them to their wilderness refuge.
The Savage Darkness is the fourth book set in the desperate, grid down world of the Darkness After Series, the story of a group of teens and young adults fighting to survive in a world gone dark.