Hood's life is gone. Student loans, house parties, video games. . .gone. The world has become a place of pure survival. Lucky for him, he's a natural with a gun in his hand. Learning to live with pulling the trigger is something else entirely.Over two years have passed since the collapse of American civilization. Hidden away in the mid-Atlantic countryside rests the small town of Clearwater, where a group of survivors led by a young marksman called Hood and an ex-cop by the name of Whiskey have found security in obscurity. Raging through the remnants of the northeast, two kings, the Kaiser and the Crusader, fight a bloody war for control of the land.Hood, Whiskey and the Clearwater crew survive by stealing just enough from the Kaiser to keep the town going. But they cannot stay hidden away forever. . .For reasons he doesn't understand, Hood is pulled into a war he wants no part of. A war he cannot stop, a war that puts the lives of those he loves most on the line. Kind-hearted, Idealistic and a goofball at heart, Hood must embrace the stark reality of violence and ruthless survival that defines these new dark ages.If you loved The Last of Us, I Am Legend, or The Road, you won't want to miss HOOD!
Like so many of you, I am a man obsessed with stories. From the earliest parts of my youth that I can remember, I yearned for imaginary worlds. I created stories and lived them out in my own footsteps, found myself engrossed in fantasy novels, mystery novels, roleplaying games, television shows, perhaps most of all, history. The world, to me, was a great story, filled with endless billions of stories, alive and dead, real and imagined. I did not seek to know them all; but only to be enthralled with as many as I could possibly come by. So when I was 18, and I first attempted creative writing, it suddenly made sense to me that everything else I had been pursuing fell woefully short of something deeper in me. Now, all I want is what many writers want; to share their own stories, to evoke feeling and inspiration and motivation in others. After all, so many who have come before have done the same for me. I look only to continue the tradition. In my own way. My first real success stemming from my writing ability happened when I placed 7th in the 76th annual Writer's Digest Competition for my short story entitled Serenaded. Since then, I've published more than 50 articles as a freelance writer, but haven't yet put a novel out to the world until now. I've been a professional poker player for eight years. I've backpacked europe, I've biked alone across the northeastern US by myself when I was eighteen. I grew up living on a boat half the year every year. I've hung out in grimy side streets and in sprawling mansions and empty parking lots. I've read a lot of books, played a lot of video games, I've grown up and I've stayed young and no matter what I learn and whatever I believe life is in this moment, I'm still searching. I think I always will be. -Evan Pickering
