In the Ashes of Collapse, Trust Is a Weapon…
Seventeen-year-old Klytie Smoots has always been the odd one out—Loner. Crazy Klytie. That’s what they called her in school, and they weren’t entirely wrong. But when a devastating EMP tears through the country, collapsing society overnight and severing all communication, Klytie’s outsider instincts become her lifeline.
Cut off and alone on her family’s scrappy farm in rural Arkansas, Klytie braces for the worst. But the collapse draws unexpected figures into her orbit—including Mattias Huber, her former childhood friend turned high school golden boy. Trusting Mattias may be her only hope, but it also means risking secrets she’s spent years burying.
In Kansas City, with his parents in Europe, Roddy Grayson is doing everything he can to keep his little sister Quaid safe as the world fractures around them. And moving through the shadows is Marine Sargeant and escaped felon, Leon Johnson—a man with a complicated past and a quiet sense of purpose—whose path will cross Klytie’s in a way neither of them expects, and just when she needs it most.
As the rules of society collapse and survival forces hard choices, Klytie must confront not only the dangers outside—but the unraveling within. Because in this new world, trust is a gamble, and staying alive might mean losing everything that made her who she was.
Fringe of Calamity is the tense, emotionally charged first book in the Fringe of Unraveling series. Gritty, character-driven, and unflinching, it explores what happens when everything falls apart—and the people you need most are the ones you never saw coming.
