Dusk and Ashes: Books 1 and 2 of the Sycamore Hollow Trials

At dawn and dusk, the open sky becomes a killing ground.

Power fails everywhere, and whole cities disappear. At the edges of daylight, strange phenomena in the sky burn anyone they find in the open. With the radios silent, the survivors are left to learn the rules by watching people die.

Mike O’Connell was struggling to hold his family together long before the world fell apart. Now he and his wife, Amelia, are turning their secluded home into a refuge for people with nowhere else to go. Every newcomer brings another pair of hands—and another mouth to feed. For Mike, being needed offers a way back from the bottle. For Amelia, it means deciding whose safety she can afford to risk.

Far away, Captain Sheraton leads his stranded soldiers through the ruins, searching for someone still giving orders. Near the Hollow, Duggan has stopped waiting for them. He offers frightened survivors a place in his new world. Obedience is the price.

As his following grows, Mike and Amelia’s refuge becomes something worth taking.

Keeping the children alive may mean teaching them how to kill.