Archive for the ‘Dystopian Fiction’ Category

Title: High Stakes
Author: Casey L. Bond
Genre: YA PNR, Dystopian/SciFi
Editor: Stacy Sanford/ The Girl with the Red Pen
Cover Designer, Photog & Trailer Made By: Melissa Stevens/ The Illustrated Author Design Services
Model: Breanna Ellis
Publication Date: Feb. 1st, 2019
Hosted by: Lady Amber’s PR
Blurb: 
Her name is Eve, and she was aptly named. The first female accepted into the Asset program, she was the first to rise to the top. She would also be the first woman to travel back in time, assigned with one target in mind: Enoch – one of the first vampires to walk the earth. Her mission was simple: Land, shove her stake through Enoch’s black heart, run to safety, and jump off something really high so she could warp back home and carve out the life she’s always wanted.
The only problem was that time travel was more complicated than anyone realized. She was supposed to travel back seven days, but instead, landed in the middle of England in the year 1348, during the time of the Black Plague.
Enoch never kept his true nature a secret. As a wealthy landowner, he protected and provided for the people under his care, and in exchange, they were more than willing to provide the scant amounts of blood he needed to survive. When a strange young woman showed up at his gate in the midst of the plague and then fell ill, he nursed her back to health.
He’d never met anyone like Eve. She was intelligent and witty, and the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes upon. And, he learned, the most dangerous.

Casey Bond lives on a rural farm in West Virginia with her husband and their two beautiful daughters. She writes phoenixes – gloriously flawed and morally gray characters that fiercely rise from the ashes of their circumstances. World building is one of her favorite hobbies, along with stamping metal jewelry, swimming, and enjoying the beauty of nature. She thinks thunderstorms are better than coffee and that watching a meteor shower is the closest thing to magic you might ever see. She’s a firm believer that every amazing book needs a world you want to wrap yourself in, a character you want to win, and a love you would fight for.

Casey is the award-winning author of When Wishes Bleed, Gravebriar, and House of Eclipses.

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Title: Numbered Days
Author: Maritza Michelle
Genre: Dystopian Romance
Release Date: March 7, 2023
Cover Design: Pink In Ink Designs
In Ceniza, whoever has money, has time.
Kace Coronado was taught from a young age what his place in his world was to be. Bound by duty to uphold a society that has long favored the rich and privileged, he has begun training to take his rightful place in Synod, the governing committee that assigns all Ceniza citizens the rest of their lives. He had his entire life before him. But nothing ever worth having comes without a steep price.
That price comes in the form of Ahava Downing, the girl from the lowest segment of the city that he never saw coming. She doesn’t need anyone, and she makes sure he knows it. His polar opposite, she is a walking embodiment of the very thing his leadership is meant to control. But the moment she boarded his transport, his entire focus began to transfer. His sun rises and sets on her.
Priorities shift when everything they thought they knew about their world is uprooted, and truth begins to take form in its place.
What would you do…if you knew you had your whole life ahead of you…but the love of your life only had a year left to live?
What would you do…if the one you can’t help but love…also represented everything you’d been raised to hate?
The race against time begins. Will anyone truly get out alive?


I take a seat upon entering, in a room filled with black walls and large windows. There are many familiar faces around me, also waiting to find out their time, but everything is a blur.
My name is called, and I stand to go back, correcting my mindset so I will not falter. The way I have been trained to.
An elder gentleman sits me down, looks me in the eye, and tells me with certainty that I am one of the lucky ones.
Lucky.
I wonder what they say to those that aren’t.
I just smile and nod. Internally I’m screaming. This ceremony did nothing for me. I stand up, steady like a rock, ready to meet my Father behind the closed steel doors.
As I walk out, the roars of the crowd grow louder, my heart racing. Gold and purple banners are strung along every railway. Coronado believes purple to be sacred, as it meant royalty in the past, and they believe it to be the closest thing to that now.
Mussing up my hair anxiously, I smile, the way I’ve been trained, and wave at all of the admirers.
I see my Father from across the yard. His presence demands attention. Sleek black hair and taller than most. He is wide in frame, probably would have been a footballer if that was still a thing, but only something I see now on old recordings. His hand holds my Mother’s but his eyes hold mine. He stands always at attention, ready to take on the world in an instant if need be.
He has never faltered. I doubt he ever will.
As I reach them, he slaps me quickly on the back, refusing to ask a question he already knows the answer to.

Maritza Michelle is a co-author duo of two longtime friends, Jasmine and Katelynn, who fell apart and back together through their love of writing and makeup.

Katelynn Colunga hails from a small town in Michigan. She has been a published romance author since 2013, and took a break from 2018 until now to focus on being a stay at home mom to three young children. She has written under two different pen names: K.Pinson for her New Adult Romance, Adult Romance and Contemporary, and Kate Lynne for her Erotica shorts. Katelynn tends to always have some kind of psychological twist in the majority of her writing.

Jasmine De La Cruz, an Angeleno born and raised, is a wife and dog mom to two hellions, Maiya and Chloe. She has written as Jasmine Carolina since 2014, and has published five Young Adult and New Adult Contemporary novels to date: Losing Me, Never Let Me Go, Almost Everything, Unbroken, and Take It All. Jasmine tends to always throw a bit of real life into her books, whether it’s her own, or current events. After a five year grief-fueled hiatus, she is now back and more dedicated to her craft than ever.

Both Katelynn and Jasmine are excited for everyone to follow along with their comeback story, each as an irreplaceable half of Maritza Michelle.

Maritza Michelle’s first project is tentatively titled Numbered Days, and is due to release early 2023.

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Title: THE UPWORLD

Author: LINDSEY S. FRANTZ 

BLURB

It has been many generations since the Vitium War.

In the ruins of what was once Appalachia, the population has split into three groups—upworlders who live in sparse, walled off cities, albino cave dwellers, and a group of savage nomads called the wylden. Then there’s Erilyn—a telekinetic 17-year-old girl who can see auras and hear thoughts. For three years she lived a quiet, calm life in the woods with Luna, her albino serval cat, until the day Finn—an upworld boy from Sunnybrook—tumbles, injured, into her clearing chased by wylden hunters.

Erilyn’s once calm life is turned upside down as she guardedly travels with Finn back to Sunnybrook. There, she must confront both the secrets of her past—the cave dwellers she ran from as a child and the bittersweet memories she daily tries to forget—and Morrigan, the girl who broke Finn’s heart and who’s harboring her own dangerous secret.

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PAPERBACK

THE SERIES

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Lindsey S. Frantz was born and raised in Appalachia and earned her MFA from Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University. Her stories and poems have previously appeared in Main Street Rag’s Villains Anthology, Ruminate Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, and Young Ravens Literary Review, among others. Her first novel, The Upworld, was released from Line by Lion Publications in August of 2017. Most recently, she’s participated in a number of anthologies with fellow authors Michelle Wilson and K.D. Reid: Ever After Again: Retold Fairy Tales, and Dragon Keeper’s Academy.

She currently lives in Somerset, Kentucky with her husband, Vince, and their two young children, James and Sadie. She and her husband both teach high school and have two kitties. She loves dragons, rainbows, trees, and a good ink pen.

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Title: Light the Fire
Series: Revolution Inferno Book One
Author: Whitley Cox writing as Natalie Sloan
Genre: Dystopian, Reverse Harem, Alpha Male, Romantic Suspense
Release Date: July 9, 2022 
Revolution Inferno Series, Book 1
A reverse harem dystopian novel.
Scorched earth will be the least of their problems when she’s through with them.
My entire life has been spent in a cage.
I’m the only one of my kind. A triple threat.
They keep me locked away, drawing my unique blood to transfuse into others so they may possess my skills.
I’m too valuable to be set free or used as the assassin I’ve trained as since I was three.
I am not a vessel.
I am not simply a bag of blood.
I am a human being—female—and we are dying out.
But I will fight until my last breath for the freedom I finally grasp.
And those who betray me will wish they were never created.
I am Haina, a triple threat Hellcat, the Angel of Death, and I will build my army, and together we will light the fire of revolution and rise from the ashes to start a fair and just new world ruled by the most compassionate, the most honest, and the most powerful: women.
Notes from the author
* Multiple POVs and first person.
* This is a MFMM romance. There are no MM romantic scenes or MM romances.
* This is a reverse harem novel, meaning the main character has more than one love interest. There is no cheating, no cliffhanger (to their romance arc) and definitely a happy ending.
* Book 2 will follow four new characters, as will Book 3, with the series arc coming to an end in Book 3.
* Please note that this book is set in a post-apocalyptic world where not only has eighty percent of the human population died, but the ice caps have melted, the oceans have warmed and the geographical landscape of the world as we know it has changed due to the drastic rise of sea levels. The author did consult with an environmental and climate specialist to see what the world is projected to look like in 400 years, but some creative liberties have been taken to enhance the story
 
 
“This book was something totally new for me. Dystopian novels are something that usually take too much for my brain to process. This one was not. I loved how I could understand and follow everything that has happened to our world (not gonna lie. It scared me how possible it is). Truly an amazing story and I cannot wait for more of this world..”
– @dangrdonne ~ Donna Smith ~ ★★★★★ Bookbub Review

“Hot hot hot!! Wow! The spicy level was insane!!! Loved every page of it and can’t wait to read more!! – @mt032 ~CK ~ ★★★★★ Bookbub Review

“This book was incredible and the author did a fantastic job with her research! The science and how the world may very well look after global warming was amazing! I loved this book and the action in it didn’t disappoint! There was a twist at the end that had me going oh no.” – Rachael Kaup ~ ★★★★★ Amazon Review


“I read the whole book in one day!! I loved it so much. Very steamy! I would recommend this book to everyone!!!” – Nicole ~ ★★★★★ Goodreads Review

A wolfish smile claimed his mouth as he continued to slide his hand back and forth, moving his fingers against the sensitive skin of my belly. 

“Would you like me to make you purr, Kitten?” he asked, dropping his mouth next to my ear, the warm puffs of his breath sending waves of pleasure straight down to my pussy. 

I swallowed. 

“Do you know what that little button between your legs is called? The one you love to rub until you’re panting and moaning down here on the bed that we all share.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It’s called the clit. And the best way to push that button is by sucking on it.”

My lips parted, and I snagged his gaze as he lifted his head away from my ear. “C-can you show me?” Oh my God, what was I doing? Why I was I asking Zane of all people to show me this? He hated me and I’d given up trying to figure out why. 

I didn’t care. Yes, you do.

Whatever. I was trying not to care.

Besides, how Zane felt about me didn’t matter. Rix, Jorik and I were building a friendship, I didn’t need Zane. And yet, nothing could have moved me from that spot, or stopped me from asking him to show me. Because at that very moment, there wasn’t anything I wanted more.

That dark, wicked smile was back, the one that transformed him from a miserable grump to a sinfully delicious god who seemed hell-bent on destroying me in the best possible way. 

“Oh, Kitten,” he groaned as his fingers slid just a little farther beneath my pants, setting my body on fire. 

His mouth hung just over mine, and I could smell the mint on his breath. 

Even though Rix was always chewing on them, we’d all taken to grinding them into a paste to clean our teeth, and occasionally chewing on them, too. 

I knew this was a game. He was playing me some how, he had to be. 

But I did not care. 

My body was scorching hot, and it seemed that Zane was the only person onboard who could help tame those flames.  

Our eyes locked, and I studied the deep, mesmerizing gray of his irises. Specks of silver and white seemed to move and shimmer as his pupils widened and his lids fell heavily. 

I gasped when his teeth caught my bottom lip in a bite that sent pain laced heavily with pleasure right down to my clit

My hips lifted again. Why were they doing that? But the movement pushed his fingers even lower beneath my pants, where I ached for him to touch me. Where I’d been touching myself more and more over the last few days, feeling bliss unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. 

“Why do you … hate me?” I whispered, squeezing my eyes closed and dropping my head back at the same time he dipped his mouth to the side of my neck and scraped his teeth along my carotid artery. 

“I don’t hate you, Kitten,” he murmured, nipping a spot just below my ear.

“You sure act like it,” I countered, struggling to get the words out as my body became a maelstrom of divine sensations. As his touch grew more avid, I struggled to pick up on anything but our raging pulses and the musky, woodsy scent of the man looming over me. 

“You’re …”

“A liability?” I asked. My deadpan gaze met his and challenged him to call me what he’d called me before. Because we both knew that I wasn’t, at least not anymore. I was learning how to compartmentalize, and I’d already proven myself to be a valuable member of this team, if that’s what we were. I provided food for us. I kept watch while they slept. I wasn’t their charge. I wasn’t a princess incapable of defending herself and in need of brave soldiers defending her. 

His head shook but just barely. “A source,” he said, though it sounded like he was forcing the words out when they didn’t want to be said. 

My eyes widened, and I went to push him away, but he held me firm in my small space beneath his body, not that I truly struggled. Because I could push him off me. 

Then why wasn’t I?

“There’s so much that you just don’t know,” he said, his eyes burning into mine and lighting an even hotter fire in my belly than a moment ago. 

“Then tell me.” I lifted my chin in challenge. “Or do you prefer to keep me in the dark?”

His chuckle held only a hint of amusement, and for a breath, we just held each other’s gaze. 

A flash of white anger rushed through me. He was deliberately pushing me, but why? I was aroused beyond measure, desperately wanting him to move his hands between my legs and put his mouth on my clit and show me how sucking it made me come even more than just rubbing it, but despite the inferno in his eyes, I could also see that he was holding back and struggling to do so. 

Natalie Sloan is the mother of two gorgeous, wild little girls, and married to her high school sweetheart. She’s traveled the world, taught abroad, and now she and her scientist husband with their kids, dog and betta fish call Nanaimo, BC home. She loves writing filthy romance that tugs at your heart strings until you think they might snap, with cantankerous heroes and steel-spined heroines.
 

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Title: Holtondome

Series: Timeless Keeper Saga #1
Author: Ryan Southwick
Genre: Dystopian
Release Date: May 17, 2022
Cover Illustration: José del Nido
 
Seg Holton yearns to leave his isolated farming dome and travel the ravaged Earth, or even to Mars Colony. Only a few things stand in his way: an authoritarian government, deadly storms, and an enchanting outsider who may be the most dangerous of all.
Fast-forward 500 years. Civilization has nearly wiped itself out of existence, and is on the long, slow road to recovery, held together by an agreement called the Pact between cities, agricultural domes, and a new global government.
Seg is a farmer in Holtondome. Like his ancestors, he’s chosen a life of ignorance about technology and the outside world in favor of a simple existence, free of the corruption that almost destroyed the human race.
His world turns upside down when Fi arrives. Tall, exotic, and far too wise for her age, she challenges everything he’s been taught to believe, making him question for the first time if a simple life is right for him or, indeed, for the rest of humanity.
But Fi has secrets darker than her black-ringed eyes — bigger than the Pact — that have implications far beyond Seg and the residents of Holtondome.
 

Returning to Holtondome in one piece always gave Seg a sense relief. At one hundred meters high and a third of a kilometer across, the opaque white dome was visible from all five of the surrounding agricultural domes, beyond which he had never traveled. The prismatic sheen of Holtondome’s solar panels, which covered every inch of its surface, lent a welcome dash of color to the otherwise drab landscape.

Everyone was preparing for the oncoming deluge when they neared the western entrance. Lightning storms meant clean water. There hadn’t been one in weeks, which didn’t help the harvest one bit, and even their drinking reservoirs were running dangerously low.

People dotted the outer dome’s curved shell, cleaning runners that would guide the rainwater down to one of four retractable collection ducts that directly fed the underground reservoirs. Many also took the opportunity to scrape grime from the solar panels, still caked from yesterday’s dust storm.

Understandably, work stopped when the sleek car approached. It glided through the western entrance with silent grace. Inside, Seg’s father, Hap, pulled himself together and gestured the driver to an empty spot between a broken-down tractor and a stack of empty wheat sacks.

“Thanks for the ride,” Seg said to the driver.

“Like I said, don’t thank—”

“Right, I forgot.” Seg turned to the woman in the back seat. “Thanks again.”

“Mm.”

He’d hoped she would grace him with her eyes once more. Here in the car might be the only time he would be close enough to fully absorb their wondrous mystery, but the woman kept her gaze fixed on the window, as she had for most of the ride. With a sigh, Seg bade a silent farewell to her and the car’s plush interior, neither of which he was likely to see again, and stepped out into the gathering crowd.

Surprised chatter met him. Seg would have been surprised, too, if he’d seen someone from Holtondome step out of a City car.

Troy pushed through the crowd, his eyes wider than the rest. “Seg! Where’s the hauler?”

“Busted on the road.”

“What about the wheat?”

“In the hauler.” Seg ground his teeth to keep from adding a “dumbass” that would surely have started a fight between him and his brother. Any other day, he might have welcomed the boredom relief, but fighting in front of the woman with the enchanting eyes would be poor hospitality.

Troy shook his head, throwing his sandy curls around like a hair tornado. “It’ll be ruined! Traders are coming tomorrow, Seg. Tomorrow! We need every scrap this quarter.”

“I know! Everyone knows! What was I supposed to do? Carry it on my back through a lightning storm? Ask the City folk to throw it in their trunk? I was lucky they even gave me a ride.”

“You could have not broken the hauler in the first place! You were racing it again, weren’t you?”

Seg couldn’t bring himself to deny it, so he set his jaw and met his brother’s glare. A fight was brewing as sure as the coming storm, whether he wanted it or not.

“Of course you were.”

Troy stepped closer until Seg could feel his breath. Troy’s upper lip twitched, a sure sign he was ready to swing. He was thirty-one, three years Seg’s senior, but the extra years hadn’t tempered his aggression—especially not against the younger brother with whom he seemed at constant odds.

“I don’t know the last time you bothered to check, but Fen’s getting worse,” Troy said. “And she’s almost out of medicine. We barely have enough food to trade for dome repairs as it is. Without that wheat, we won’t have enough to barter for medical supplies, let alone replacement parts for the hauler. Remember that the next time you think about taking our livelihood out for a joy ride!”

Troy tensed, clearly expecting Seg to hit him.

And boy, did Seg want to. He balled his fists so tight that his nails bit into his palms.

The rear driver-side door opening—followed by a fresh round of chatter—was the only thing that stopped him.

The woman swept her enchanting eyes over those gathered with the same interest she’d shown Seg, which was none at all. In contrast, the crowd gawked at her, bewitched, just as Seg had been when he’d first seen her.

Hap shuffled forward with a warm smile. “Welcome to Holtondome. Hap Holton, at your service.”

In an un-City-person-like move, the woman extended her hand in greeting. Hap’s smile faltered, but he took it just the same.

“Fi,” she said. “Thank you for having me in your dome.”
​​Ryan Southwick decided to dabble at writing late in life, and quickly became obsessed with the craft. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.
His technical skills as a software developer, healthcare experience, and lifelong fascination for science fiction became the ingredients for his first series, The Z-Tech Chronicles, which combines these elements into a fantastic contemporary tale of super-science, fantasy, and adventure, based in his Bay Area stomping grounds.
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Title: Ingress
Author: Bria Starr
Genre: Dystopian
Release Date: April 12, 2022
Cover Design: Cassy Roop at Pink Ink Designs

Surrounded by flames and turmoil, David can’t remember how he ended up in the unfamiliar town of Ingress. While his heart is eager to find a way back home, he can’t help but intercede when he sees a young orphaned child in need of help.
Welcomed by a broken community, David becomes Ender—the unlikely leader who teaches his new people how to survive in the wilderness after losing everything. Together, they work to rebuild Ingress while Ender builds a life better than the one he left behind.
But it all could be for nothing if anyone discovers Ender’s secret.
Discover the truth behind Ingress in this mesmerizing prequel to The Divided.

Chapter One


Light illuminates the darkened sky above as clouds of smoke waft over me. Lying on my back, a burning tickle in my throat forces me to cough. It’s not enough to clear my airway. A series of hacking sends me to my knees as I double over in a fit. A thick layer of ash falls off my body into a soft pile on the grass under me.

My eyes, irritated by the dense smog, struggle to adjust. Pushing away the tears that have blurred my vision, all I can see is a raging inferno. The back of my sooted hand wipes away a few falling tears as my eyes frustratingly produce more.

What is going on? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was having a nightmare, reliving my war days. My mind races, trying to piece together how I got here. Surely I was asleep in my apartment only a few moments before. No, that’s not right. I was camping in the Rocky Mountains. But nothing here resembles anything close to that.

My hands press onto warm earth as I rise to my feet, feeling grass and soil instead of my silky red sleeping bag. I glance behind me in search of my things, but they aren’t there. 

I drop to my knees and frantically rub my hands all over the grass for my backpack, sleeping bag, or anything—but come up empty-handed. Where are they? Hands on hips, I scratch the back of my head and recount what I remember last.

I had just broken up with Brittany, who I had been dating for seven months. She thought I was “emotionally unavailable” and called things off. Truth is, I’m not. I just wasn’t emotionally available to her. So I packed up my gear and went for a hike in the Rocky Mountains. Even though it was amicable, I was hurt and felt the urge to get some fresh air. After dinner, I holed up in an empty cave, crawled in my sleeping bag, and passed out.

Once asleep, I dreamt of falling. It was like the ground suddenly gave way and swallowed me whole, only to spit me out here.

Perspiration drips from my brow. The blistering heat is uncomfortable and causes my sweat-soaked shirt to cling to my torso. Another cough escapes and I stagger toward the road just ahead as I brush off more ash from my body. I must have been out here for a while to be covered so thoroughly.

As I wander debris-covered streets void of people, I peel my shirt away from my chest and tuck the bottom half of my face under the collar. It’s hardly helping with keeping the smoke from entering my lungs. To my left lies a series of menacing flames scattered everywhere. Every house I can see, every building, the whole town is ablaze. My mouth drops open and my heart races even faster. This is definitely not home. I’ve woken up in a completely different time or place. I rub my eyes, forcing myself to wake up from this nightmare. But I’m wide awake.

To my right, I see a large hole in a wall—like some sort of town perimeter. Next to it are four dead bodies. I stop and scan my environment for any danger. Burning buildings and dead bodies are two very different things.

A scream rings out in the distance. I cock my head and listen for any other sounds beyond the crackling and popping fire. As I move slowly toward the opening, which looks like my exit out of here, I hear it again. I’ve heard many screams from many men, but this one is different.

This scream is coming from a child.

Bria Starr grew up in a small town in Minnesota and continues to live there with her family. She’s a quiet person with an infinite imagination, loves junk food, and is always cold. Her favorite things include reading, writing, listening to music, and watching too many movies.
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