Breakers

Books 1-3 and the prequel novella of the Breakers series.

As an agent of the Department of Advance Analysis, she's one of a handful of people who knows about the spread of a new virus—one she believes will wipe out mankind. With her bosses in denial, she flies to New York to get her ex-fiancé, Chip, to safety. But he's already been scooped up and quarantined—and so has his adopted daughter. Pursued by her own agency, Ellie will stop at nothing to break Chip out before the virus claims them all.

In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa. In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity, running water, or neighbors, Walt begins an existential walk to LA.

In upstate Idaho, Ness Hook is run out of his mom's house by his bullying brother Shawn. In Redding, California, Tristan Carter is graduating college, but with no job and no prospects, she'll have to move back in with her parents. Then the world ends. After Ness discovers his best friend dead of disease, Shawn takes their family to the mountains to wait out the plague.

Raina was just a girl when the plague came. She survived. Her parents didn't. Neither did the world. As civilization fell, she took to the ruins of Los Angeles, eating whatever she could catch. After two years alone, she's found and adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Their makeshift family lives a quiet life—until a man named Karslaw sails in from Catalina Island with an army of conquerors. Driven by visions of empire, he executes Raina's new father as a traitor and takes her mother captive. But Karslaw's people aren't the only ones vying for control of the ruined land.

When the plague came, federal agent Ellie Colson fled into the Adirondacks with Dee, the daughter she barely knew. They began a new life as subsistence farmers, isolated from the fall of the world. In the six years since, a small community has arisen from the ashes. Dee is grown up. She's engaged to Quinn, a young man from across the lake. And she's being hunted. Strangers are spying on the farms at night. Dee's harassed by a spurned suitor. One of Quinn's dogs turns up dead. Drawing on her old skills, Ellie launches an investigation of the locals.

In the fast-paced Breakers series, humanity faces not one apocalypse, but two: first a lethal pandemic, then a war against those who made the virus. It's been six years since the plague and Tristan has spent five of them in Maui with her brother Alden. Life seems quiet. Simple. Peaceful. All these illusions are torn away when she discovers an alien installation hidden in the mountains. In response, she prepares a boat and starts work on a new home deep in the forest.

Once, Walt Lawson saved the world. Lately, he's lived in peaceful anonymity with his girlfriend Carrie. This morning, she's been kidnapped. Walt has a single lead: the van that took her. Its trail points him up the coast to San Jose, where survivors have banded together against the gangs who've overrun the north. With the aid of a local guide, Walt homes in on the kidnappers, who are days from shipping Carrie far away. But Walt's past is about to crash down on his rescue plans.

Anson's army has driven Raina from the mainland, but the war is far from over. From the safety of Catalina Island, she launches a guerrilla campaign, meaning to weaken him cut by cut. She finds herself matched at every step by his grimly determined lieutenant, Lowell. With progress slower than expected, Raina is forced to accept the creation of a war council. But the council's will to fight is weakening by the day. Pressured by her enemies and from within, Raina soon finds her grip on the island slipping.

The final book in the postapocalyptic Breakers series.