Archive for June 18, 2021

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I am so excited that DEEP STATE DOWN BOXSET
by Christa Wick writing as Dana Fraser is available now and that I get to
share the news!

If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book, be sure to check out all the
details below.

This blitz also includes a giveaway for a $10 Amazon GC courtesy of Christa, & Rockstar
Book Tours
. So if you’d like a chance to win, check out the giveaway info below.

 

 

Title: DEEP STATE DOWN BOXSET

Author: Christa Wick writing as Dana Fraser

Pub. Date: June 2, 2021

Publisher: Christa Wick

Formats:  eBook

Find it:  https://books2read.com/u/bojAza?redirect=off

This is the complete DEEP STATE DOWN series
bundle
, which includes two intense post-apocalyptic survival thrillers:

 

–  HARD WAY HOME (Book 1)

–  DARK ROAD BACK (Book 2)

 

Set in a dystopian U.S. that has been thrown
into a deadly new dark ageNew York Times bestselling
author Christa Wick (writing as Dana Fraser) brings readers a
gripping 210,000-word high-octane saga with a compelling cast of strong,
imperfect character
s, each fighting to find and protect their loved ones
against unthinkable odds.

 

BOOK ONE: HARD WAY HOME

 

Two strangers. Almost no chance of survival.
Even less hope. 
When a
massive cyber breach hits every U.S. hydroelectric station just as the Gulf
Coast refineries are decimated by a volatile storm, the attack knocks out the
nation’s entire power supply, instantly throwing America into a deadly
new dark age
.

 

For Army veteran Cash Bishop, getting back to
his family before it’s too late becomes a fight to survive in
a race against time. His only ally? A brilliant energy scientist who may be the
only person still alive with more things to be afraid of than the impending
apocalypse.

 

Dr. Hannah Carter doesn’t know who’s after her
or when she became a target. But getting captured is not an option. Seems the
stranger she meets on her dangerous cross-country trek is the only person she
can trust now to help get her home. And keep her alive.

 

With chaos escalating and the country
on the brink of collapse
, Cash and Hannah need to figure out who executed
the attacks on the U.S. power grid, and why these people are so willing to kill
him to get to her.

 

BOOK TWO: DARK ROAD BACK

 

In this gripping sequel to the post-apocalypse
action thriller HARD WAY HOME
, the
answers behind an onslaught of not-so-natural disasters only lead to more
questions as a global depopulation conspiracy threatens Americans from right in
their own back yard.

 

Retired Army Colonel Thomas Sand returns to
the U.S. during its darkest days, only to find the leaders left in
government—puppeted by the deep state elite—want him dead. Between the threat
assessment algorithm he developed before the apocalypse, and the fact that his
wife Becca and stepdaughter Hannah are both brilliant scientists critical to
the new world order, his family isn’t short on enemies. And despite all his
training to the contrary, his only duty now is to them and
their safety. Unbeknownst to him, halfway down the coast, his wife is fighting
to drag her fevered and battered body home with no means of communication, and
only the help of a nameless stranger…

 

Meanwhile, Dr. Hannah Carter, still traveling
with the Army veteran who saved her life, discovers she may be the linchpin to
destroying the dangerous shadow government that now controls what remains of
the fast-crumbling U.S. But to do so, she must leave behind everyone she cares
about and face off against the hidden puppet master pulling the strings from
his bunker. Unbeknownst to her, Cash Bishop, her fearless companion turned
ruthless protector, has followed her into the lion’s den, no
violence spared. His only light in their new broken world of neverending
darkness, finding Hannah is a given. As is taking down the corrupt powers that
destroyed his country once and for all…

 

 

Excerpt:

 

DARK ROAD BACK

© 2021 by Dana Fraser

 

Chapter 4: Good
Riddance

 

 

All total, Thomas spent
fifteen minutes in the house after shooting Gavin once center mass, then again
in the head. He quickly ransacked the man’s clothing and desk, taking the
wallet and a key ring that had fobs for both vehicles. From there, he sprinted to
the master bedroom, removing Agnetha’s diamonds from the corpse and dumping the
rest of her jewelry box into a pillow case before heading to the oversized
utility closet at the back of the garage where Gavin kept his golf clubs and,
more importantly, most of his hunting equipment.

Entering the garage, he hit
the remote start for the Land Rover. Nothing happened. He hit it again, then a
few more times trying different combinations of pressing the button. Next he
tried the Z4. With the only sound in the garage that of Thomas swearing, he
stalked over to the Land Rover, threw the driver side door open and tried
starting the vehicle in the more conventional manner.

He lost ten seconds to
pounding out his fury against the steering wheel then popped the hood, got out
and lifted it the rest of the way open. He stared, mind numb at the jumble of
slashed wires and hoses, the inner protective covering of the Land Rover’s
engine missing. Spotting a note taped to the inside of the hood, he pulled it
off and read, his flesh heating in rage.

Whoever you are, you weren’t
meant to survive.

Your Host, Gavin DeBerg

Even though he knew he would
find the same cruel sarcasm beneath the hood of the Z4, Thomas had to check.
Each step, each wasted second pounded in his chest, but he opened the driver
side door, popped the hood and surveyed the carnage.

Yep, DeBerg really was a
cold-hearted bastard. If the world wasn’t ending around him, Thomas would have
returned to the basement and unloaded the Maxim’s remaining twenty-seven bullets
into the corpse’s groin and face. 

Hell, he’d grab an extra
magazine and turn the body into Swiss cheese.

But the world was ending, so
he kept a tight grip on his focus and turned to the utility closet. He twisted
the doorknob, found it locked. He tried both keys on the ring he had taken from
Gavin’s desk drawer. When that failed, he lifted his leg, took a quarter second
to brace then kicked as hard as he could, his anger doubling the force of the
blow he landed.

Hollow and made out of
plywood, the door peeled away from its frame to expose two backpacks and a
Browning bolt-action rifle in camo finish kitted out with a custom stock and a
Leupold VX-6 rifle scope with a 6:1 zoom ratio.

He tested the weight of the
two packs then opened the heavier one, finding two extra magazines and several
boxes of ammunition, as well as all the other contents he would expect Gavin to
carry on a hunting trip or in a bug out bag.

Conscious that someone could
show up and challenge him at any second, Thomas stood with everything but his
gaze immobilized as he tried to figure out how to get the extra gear back to
the Caddy. Then he remembered the separate garage, the one with the au pair
suite above it.

He hadn’t asked Gavin about
the girl, hadn’t even thought that she could be alive and walk in on him.

Get your head out of your ass, soldier!

With a curt nod acknowledging
his own stupidity, he headed to the breezeway that joined the main house to the
small wing. A glance in the garage revealed no third car, but there was a
riding lawn mower. A jog up the stairs offered a self-contained suite filled
with furniture, but an empty refrigerator and cupboards. He ran back down, hit
the garage door opener then returned to the main garage, grabbed the two packs
and the rifle and dragged them to the lawn mower.

Spotting a fifteen-gallon gas caddy, he almost pissed himself with joy.

With the mower’s key in the
cup holder, he spent his last two-point-five minutes in Gavin’s house getting
everything strapped onto the machine using the garden hose he found hanging in
a coil on the garage wall. He took the same route from house to woods, barely
slowing once he was past the tree line to retrieve his pack.

He stopped when he got close
to the trail, turned the mower off and made a scouting trip to check the area
around the Caddy. When he was satisfied no one was watching, he brought the
mower up alongside the Cadillac, started the old beast and popped the trunk. He
put the fuel container in first. He had already tested the seal on the nozzle
and fill hole in the garage, but he tested them again then grabbed the lighter
of the two packs from the storage closet.

He figured the bag was meant
for Agnetha to carry and dumped the contents in the trunk for a quick survey.
The neutral line of his mouth turned to a frown as a couple dozen diapers fell
out. Then he laughed, thinking about the NASA astronaut who had worn adult
diapers for a marathon cross country drive with the intent to slay a sexual
rival. If they had been adult sized, he might have entertained the idea because
every stop he made on the trip home would heighten his exposure. Still, the
diapers might come in handy if he injured himself. And the baby formula and jar
food was worth keeping as long as he could.

Looking at the contents,
Thomas could understand the thought process that had spurred Agnetha’s revolt.
She had put on her most alluring dress and favorite jewels before poisoning
herself. The woman had preferred to die looking like a million bucks instead of
living with makeup running down her face and dirt under her nails, with no au
pair to hand Gisa off to. Thomas could count on one hand how many times he’d
seen the woman hold her daughter over that four-day weekend.

Leaving the contents of the
bag scattered, he tossed in the garden hose then slammed the lid. The heavier
pack he placed on the passenger floorboard of the front seat, taking a few
seconds to dig inside and remove the shortwave radio. He placed the radio in
the center of the seat then climbed behind the wheel and carefully drove
backwards for a quarter mile until he was off the bike trail.

The best route to his home in
Evansville, Indiana, was also the most direct. He passed unmolested through
Manassas then headed southwest to Interstate 81. He followed it south to the
I-64 exchange then headed west into the George Washington and Jefferson
National Forest.

Surrounded by the quiet
beauty of the woods and hills, he could almost relax. Between the full tank he
had started with and the gas caddy, he figured he would make it at least as far
as Huntington, West Virginia. Before that, he would keep an eye out for both
the conventional and unconventional opportunities to get more gas. He had cash
to pay, and some of the commercial operations would have tanks of fuel with
generators running. Timber companies and farms would have hand pumps if they
didn’t have generators, and he would pass plenty of both getting to Evansville.

The farmers would be
reluctant to give him any gas because it was specially dyed to mark it for
agricultural use only. They would tell him to wait, tell him that the pumps in
town would be working within a few hours, either because the power would be
back on or the generators would be up and working. They would be wrong, but
Thomas would do nothing to warn them. Instead, he would pull out a piece of
Agnetha’s gold jewelry from his pocket.

Greed would spark in the
farmer’s gaze and the gas would flow into the Caddy’s tank. For a day or two,
the farmer would shake his head in memory, maybe chuckle to his wife about the
foolish traveler who had traded a thousand dollars worth of gold or a
three-strand diamond bracelet for less than a hundred in gas.

Then reality would set in and the farmer and his wife would weep.

 

About Dana Fraser: 

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Christa Wick (writing
as Dana Fraser
) has been hybrid publishing since 2012 in various
genres. Along with her post-apocalyptic action thrillers as Dana, she’s written
over fifty romance and paranormal titles as Christa and C.M. Wick, and also
writes high-octane suspense fiction and urban fantasy novels under other pen
names.

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