Release Week: DEEP STATE DOWN BOXSET by Christa Wick - Excerpt - Giveaway!-

 

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 age, New 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 characters, 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…

 

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.

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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Giveaway Details:

• 1 lucky winner will wina $10 Amazon GC, International.

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