The Hollow Mile

At 4:11 a.m. the grid dies, and Marisol Ferrer keeps her patient breathing with a bicycle and her own two legs. Two weeks later her city is a ration line. The water well is the only thing holding the block together, and the only person who can fix it is Hal Adair — a widowed bridge engineer with calloused hands, a slow drawl, and no interest in being anyone's hero. They are not in love. They are in logistics. He repairs; she organizes; and every mile east of the city is one more mile they have to argue about. Then a gang takes the well, and nine neighbors have nowhere left to go. Thirty-one miles on foot, two carts, one bad crossing, and a night in an empty church where Marisol finally admits there is no one waiting for her anywhere. An EMP survival romance about two exhausted people who save a block, a convoy, and each other, in that order.