In a fractured world where survival is a daily battle, Ash and Caleb Solomon have found solace and love in the remote mountain community of Beartooth. But when their first encounter with the extremist Freedom and Morality Alliance turned deadly, Caleb vows to protect his family and home from the fanatics controlling neighboring Pryor, Wyoming.

Leading a small team into hostile territory, Caleb discovers Pryor is far darker and more sinister than he ever imagined. Meanwhile, Ash faces her own harrowing challenges back in Beartooth, where every day brings new threats from prowling predators to nature’s fury.

As tensions rise and dangers mount, Ash and Caleb are pushed to their limits. The fight for survival becomes more than a battle against enemies; it’s a test of resilience, sacrifice, and unbreakable love.

Will they find a way to protect their fragile haven or will the shadows of Pryor and the wild claim everything they hold dear?

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	Preorder Coming Soon
GENRE Dystopian Romance
Teen
Available May 19, 2025

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Excerpt

It had only been two days since they laid Neal Yandell to rest. Neal was one of the founding families of the small mountaintop community of Beartooth, Wyoming. He had worked hard to ensure its success. Now he was gone, and everyone was struggling to move on, including Ashley Solomon.

As Ash plucked her baby, Sara, out of the crib, her mind wandered back over Beartooth’s history. The community had given her a safe, secure, and happy childhood. She hoped to provide her daughter with the same, but recent events caused her to have deep concerns for their future.

Twenty-seven years ago, Beartooth was settled with just three families who purchased a struggling mountain resort to build a sustainable community. The settlers wanted to live a simpler life and escape the division, crime, corruption, disease, political unrest, and hatred that plagued the country.

In addition to the human crises unfolding around the world, environmental and natural disasters pushed populations closer to the brink of collapse. The shifting of tectonic plates, increased numbers and intensity of earthquakes with volcanic eruptions, and flooding caused by all the glaciers melting into inland lakes and oceans had wiped out coastal cities, displacing hundreds of millions of people.

People trickled into Beartooth for nearly a decade past its inception. Some made occasional trips off the mountain for supplies, parts to improve and maintain their infrastructure, medical treatment, vaccinations, and to transport new residents in and out of the community.

After the near-continuous swarms of earthquakes in the area destroyed most of the roads and all of the bridges that once provided access to the community, new arrivals ceased. The community had been essentially cut off from the outside world ever since.

Despite their isolation, Beartooth thrived. While the wealthier nations of the world gambled on science and high-tech solutions to solve the problems threatening the survival of humanity, Beartooth experimented with the opposite approach. They focused on the lowest-tech methods to satisfy their basic needs, which so far, had proven successful.

Ash knew Caleb was waiting for her outside, so she quickly secured Sara in the baby sling and left the cabin. He took her hand, as he often did, and they began the half-mile walk to the apiary in silence, both consumed with their own thoughts.

She had moved to Beartooth with her widowed mother when she was three. Ash spent her childhood helping her mom tend the bees, maintaining a community plant nursery, and spending time with Caleb Solomon. Life had been peaceful and carefree. Things had changed, and she yearned for those simpler times.

On the day the U.S. commenced the first round of stratospheric aerosol injections or SAI, intended to cool the planet, just over two years ago, her mom passed away, leaving Ash responsible for the survival of the bees. She wasn’t sure if she could have endured the loss if it weren’t for her recent marriage to Caleb. He had been her best friend growing up, now he was her partner in life and the father of their beautiful baby girl, Sara Olivia, named after both mothers.

“I don’t think planting will be much later than it was last year, unless the rest of April turns colder,” Caleb said, breaking the silence.

“I agree. The first honey harvest should start about the same time, assuming the bees didn’t experience a large overwinter die-off. Unfortunately, I won’t know how many we’ve lost for another couple of months when I open the hives,” Ash replied as she looked down at Sara and smiled.

When they reached the apiary, Caleb took his bow and wandered off while Ash inspected each hive. They generally checked the hives twice a day to make sure nothing had disturbed the colony, and there were no issues with the bees.

“Everything looks good here,” Ash said as Caleb returned carrying a dead rabbit by its hind legs.

Ash eyed his prize and groaned.

“What, you don’t want rabbit for dinner?”

“Only if we can eat it all in one sitting, or maybe we should invite someone over for dinner so we don’t have any leftovers,” Ash replied.

Caleb laughed, then leaned in and kissed Ash on the lips. “Your openness to new things is one of the many reasons why I love you so much.”

“I bet if the other girls in Beartooth knew all they had to do was choke down some unusual entrees to win your heart, they would have tried.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. My heart has always belonged to you, and it always will,” he said, flashing Ash a wide, warm smile that always made her pulse beat a little faster.

When he talked to her that way, she believed life could continue on as it always had, and she and Caleb could give Sara a safe and happy upbringing, just like they experienced. But then her mind would return to the present.

The U.S. government with support from the European Union had begun utilizing stratospheric aerosol injections, a geoengineering process which introduced sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect some of the sun’s rays back into space and cool the planet. It had worked for some, in the short term, but the program would need to continue for decades to make the results permanent, and many countries had been harmed. With Beartooth sitting at around 9,000 feet in elevation, they worried that the dropping temperatures would threaten their food supply if the program continued.

After each injection, the temperatures cooled around the world and disrupted weather patterns, causing drought in some areas and floods in others, impacting global food security even further. The countries being pushed toward famine had resorted to trying to take what they needed from the wealthier countries by force.

The U.S. President, with help from a radicalized majority in both houses, had passed the Continuity in Crisis Bill, giving the President the authority to suspend elections during times of crisis and rule unilaterally. Unfortunately, a state of crisis seemed to be the norm rather than the exception, so many doubted he would ever allow the country to hold elections again, effectively ending democracy in America.

Many of the citizens of America were fighting back, plunging the country into civil war. At the same time, a large multinational military force from Mexico and Central and South America was amassing along the U.S./Mexico border demanding assistance from the U.S. to prevent widespread famine in their respective countries. European nations were facing a similar situation with militaries from Africa, the South Pacific, and Asia, collectively known as ASPA, joining forces to fight for what they needed to survive.

Closer to home, Beartooth’s nearest neighbor, Pryor, Wyoming, had become a notoriously dangerous place. It was one of fifty cities established to resettle citizens displaced as coastal cities were inundated by rising sea levels. Pryor had been taken over by an extremist faction calling themselves the Freedom and Morality Alliance or FAMA. It terrorized the city’s population, killing tens of thousands, stripped women of their rights, forced their values and beliefs on others, and executed those who wouldn’t pledge their allegiance to FAMA and its leader, Jonah Bennett.

FAMA’s leaders didn’t understand Beartooth, which they found threatening. They bought into a number of crazy, conspiracy theories about why the isolated community existed, and had decided that Beartooth must be controlled or eliminated.

Beartooth’s first contact with FAMA ended in Neal’s death. But what Ash feared most at the moment was Caleb’s vow to make sure FAMA’s helicopter never reached her, Sara, or Beartooth again. She knew her husband well. He would make good on his promise or die trying.

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