Sarah Asher

Sullen Ground

War story. Survival story. 

Love story.

Fifty million dead. A military divided. A once proud nation left poor, broken, and desperate. No goods. No currency. No technology. No protection. There are only people, and other people left in the aftermath of chaos. This is where we find ourselves in the second United States Civil War.

 

In the war that seemed to start overnight and destroy all they knew, civilians were pushed aside, subjugated, and seen as only a problem by their warring government after a mysterious Directive is enforced. In the blink of an eye, all would change forever. What these people knew was no more, just pages in history as they staggered forward, with all things a now blank slate. What they thought they knew of themselves would be tested, as they faced an America they did not recognize. What they believed about life, liberty, love, pain, honor—all would change. In one small Michigan town, a handful of citizens would come to find out what they were made of, and see themselves for the first time…for the good, and for the bad.

 

While her parents are overseas on an anniversary cruise, young Pen is in charge of the family flower shop. But as attention turns away from wedding flowers and Valentine’s Day bouquets to the ominous current events of the nation, she feels duty-bound to prepare for questionable times ahead. In a few short weeks, her beloved town of Plymouth will crumple under the weight of mass business loss, food shortage, looting, violence, Martial Law and eventually evacuation, courtesy of the government-inspired Directive that leads to the war of her generation. With nowhere to go and interstate travel banned, she has no choice but to stay in town and hope to make it out of the war alive. And when she discovers that others have also stayed behind, she won’t have to make it through alone…​