chicago « Robin Writes

Yes, RHP has released our eighth book!

First, there was REDUCED:

A devastating biological agent is about to be released, to be tested in remote areas. Rumor has it, though, that there is more to this than meets the eye. One group makes plans to hide out, and survive, in case that rumor proves to be truth. Meeting at an abandoned summer camp near St. Louis, Missouri, a dozen old friends gather after the alarm is raised.

Life becomes more precious, more tenuous, as time passes. Government controls tighten, people are herded into the city…or killed. Towns are obliterated. And soon, the enemy agenda becomes obvious.

Abby will come face-to-face with death, bear the responsibility for a young girl, and endure the severing of childhood relationships in the most terrible way imaginable.

From mere concealment to reconnaissance to aiding a rebellion, where will it end? Will the entire region be decimated, and who will be left alive to know?

Then, we had REUSED:

Colonel Barton has been replaced, and the new commander is sending his henchman, Major Blake, to scour the outlying areas and remove any insurgents. Abby and the girls have remained in the cave at the camp, relatively safe for now, but plans are underway to eliminate all of them…for personal reasons, known only to the commander himself.

Soon, however, worlds will collide as Captain Alison Hinson is transferred in from Chicago. In spite of her background, Alison is horrified by the tactics of her superiors in the field and begins to question her own stance on the new government. As she puts together the pieces of the past, she realizes that she and Abby are kindred spirits, faced with a mission not of their own choosing, but of circumstance.

Across the country, while officials and mercenaries live the high life, the citizenry are faced with more sanctions, more regulation, and fewer necessities. Pockets of rebellion are quickly quelled, but incidents continue to increase as more people make the decision to go underground. Literally.

From abandoned caves below St. Louis itself to a subterranean river winding north into Illinois, REUSED will tell you more, perhaps, than you truly wish to know about the potential for the utter collapse of our civilization.

And now, RECYCLED!

The population was REDUCED.

But some were REUSED.

And now, RECYCLED:

Abby is enroute to Chicago to find the children, and she has one final objective: to defeat the government and take back her life.

But Jules is focused on another mission, to return to St. Louis, and to Mario.

Will Abby succeed? Will Jules survive gang warfare? Who is Riley, and what is her secret?

RECYCLED is officially being launched this Saturday at All on the Same Page Bookstore, and is available NOW – at Rocking Horse Publishing, at Amazon, and on Kindle.

And just to make is easy, you can click on any of my books on the right side of the page and order directly from there!

However, if you go my website, you can get all three for just $30. And I’ll even sign them!

This week, I’m going to tell you how it all started and why some people think I’m a prepper. Am I? Maybe…

I grew up on a farm. My great-great-great grandfather started that farm in 1850. We lived there from the time I was born until I was three, then again when I was 13 until I left for college. My earliest memories are playing in the yard around the old farmhouse, washhouse, smokehouse, and in and out of the barns and chicken coop.

Those of you who are wondering about that last, well, my abject fear of birds came later, when I was about six or seven!

My great-grandfather was still farming in the late 1960s and I followed him around the garden and played with his pet squirrel, Curly. My dad took over in the 70s and that’s when the Monsanto connection began. Keep in mind, please, before you shut your browser and delete me from your friends’ lists, this was before the average person – including many farmers – knew about GMOs and what they did.

Growing up, I loved being outside. I camped and rode our horses, hiked, explored. And I was very interested in history and the “old days.” If I’d had a time machine, I would have gone back, not forward.

I’ve been writing for years, and kept saying I was going to write a book. Someday. No one ever discouraged me, and in fact kept telling me to it – now! So, finally, the book that had to be written was started and finished last year. REDUCED came out in late August 2012. REUSED followed in mid-December, and RECYCLED will be released next week.

Three books in one year – I don’t recommend it!

The basic premise of REDUCED is “what if.” “What if” one of these government screws we read about on an almost daily basis reduced the population to nearly unsustainable levels? “What if” everyone had to start over – no electric, no Internet, communications towers inoperable? A lot of people think this could happen, regardless of the catalyst, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became.

As an old Girl Scout, I know the value of “be prepared” so I started doing a little preparing myself. Just a little. I’m not a fanatic or anything, although I do apparently have a crazy cousin who’s planning to gather people to move to Oklahoma at some point.

Anyway, I do some prepping, sure. And the characters in my books did, too. And after it all went down, they had to scramble a bit to survive – although it helps when the competition for supplies has been, er, reduced!

My characters heard about something going down, soon, but there was no announcement, no emergency sirens, nothing like that. And they were ready, for… well, they didn’t really know how bad it was going to be. And they spent the next ten years or so surviving. And fighting back. But, when it’s all over, for the most part, this decade-long crisis, it’s time to buckle down and go back in time and start over. And no, I’m not talking about time travel – back to pioneer days, homesteads, and again, surviving.