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e-novels by Edward A. Stabler

After the Thunderbird virus has killed 70% of the US population, after the ensuing rebellion has been brutally subdued, 18-year-old Ana Ferris and her tween brother are orphans trapped in the Four Corners Quarantine Zone. Administered by the malevolent Colonel Scalter of the National Guard, “Quar Corners” is a lawless wasteland rife with violence, slavery, and theft. Ana and Skeeter find refuge in Silverton, a vigilant small town isolated from the rest of Quar Corners by impassable mountain roads.

When Ana learns that the National Guard (“the Govs”) have begun to infiltrate Silverton to “normalize” its residents, she is recruited by two friends to bike a forgotten trail into the heart of Quar Corners. The trio plans to retrieve a code that will disable the normalize drug when they return to Silverton. As they discover how the code works, Ana learns that she’ll have to find four code segments and travel hundreds of miles through gang-ridden Quar Corners to collect them. Alone.

Her task seems impossible, especially after her bike is stolen, but Ana feels she has nothing to lose. Her odyssey is transformed when she meets a Thunderbird survivor who has lost his family and his job. Pursued by the Scorpions gang, weaponized robot dogs, and perching surveillance drones, Ana and her new ally face a reckoning in Silverton. If they can get that far.

buy QUAR CORNERS for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!

Ferals and Natives, book 1

Ty Hopefin shares a rental house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with two fellow 20-somethings. When the friendly cat who roams his cul-de-sac succumbs to a recently discovered virus, he tries to console his young neighbor, a wheelchair-bound girl who has lost her best friend.

But Ty’s sympathy turns to suspicion after his housemate accidentally records a private meeting of animal-control vigilantes who may be propagating the virus. As the cat-killing microbe spreads across the country, Ty becomes determined to learn where it came from and how it relates to the project the vigilantes call FANG.

His investigation points him to a sinister posse of bird watchers, a Thai virology lab, and a retired professor of Navajo mythology. Wading into the world of cat-colony caretakers, Ty encounters a shadowy chapter of eco-activists called LEO, whose struggle to save “ferals and natives” appears to be funded by a reclusive green-energy tycoon and run by a young widow named Carlin Kelso.

When FANG invades a LEO hideout, Kelso retreats to Utah’s canyon country, where she decides to accept an offer of help from an inquisitive stranger. FANG moles have penetrated her network, so she has to place her trust in someone they don’t know. That person is Ty, who must deliver for LEO before FANG eliminates them both — and finishes what it started.

buy LEO & FANG for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!

Ferals and Natives, book 2

Back home in suburban Virginia, Ty Hopefin tries to resume his everyday routine. He’s recovering from a violent encounter in a Utah desert — a mountain lion mauled him while saving him from his FANG assailants. But now Ty finds himself distracted and unnerved by the physical and mental changes he’s experiencing. And he can’t help wondering if FANG will come after him again.

When a narrow escape in a wooded park confirms his fears, Ty accepts an invitation to return to Utah and join LEO, an off-the-grid band of eco-activists intent on saving feral and native cats. At least that’s how Ty prefers to describe Carlin Kelso and her crew. But the transition he’s going through forces him to confront a deeper truth, one shrouded in canyon-country myth.

As FANG’s noose tightens around LEO, Ty must learn the shadowhand secrets. The survival of the entire network and what’s left of the inner circle depends on it. His search for a rare cohort of mountain lions takes him to California’s Trinity Alps and southern Utah’s canyon wilderness, with the hounds of FANG drawing ever closer.

When the decisive confrontation looms, Ty finds himself outgunned and surrounded, waiting for help that may not arrive. To save LEO he must choose between his old life and his new life — and make a fatal choice between logic and the shadowhand myth.

buy THE SHADOWHAND LEAP for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!

The River Trilogy

In 1831, young Grace Alstyne is assaulted and killed in the woods beside the Potomac River by two workers helping to build the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

As descendants of her brutish killers learn for generations, Grace will not go unavenged.

The story begins with SWAINS LOCK, drifts to the Yukon with BURYING ZIMMERMAN, and returns to the C&O Canal with IF IT IS APRIL.

River Trilogy, book 1

…I fear I have been killed because of what happened today at Swains Lock.

So begins the dried-out note that Vin Illick finds while scavenging planks from an abandoned shed near the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. It’s signed by canal-hand Lee Fisher and dated 1924. Vin reads on:

I may be buried along with the others at the base of three joined sycamores…

…one tree leads to the money, the second leads to the killers and the third leads to the dead. In your search for me you may find the truth. Be careful you don’t share my fate.

Vin should be finishing his software consulting project and looking for a full-time job — that was the plan when he and his fiancee Nicky relocated to Maryland so she could start work as a veterinarian. But to Nicky’s chagrin, Vin becomes determined to find Lee Fisher’s joined sycamores. Was Lee killed and buried along with the others? What about the money? And what happened at Swains Lock?

Following threads in the note, Vin finds fresh clues that seem intended for him. His investigation turns life-threatening in the woods, and he suspects a young widow associated with two accidental deaths is stalking his search. As Vin closes in on the sycamores, his obsession with “Lee Fisher’s truth” may cost him his relationship with Nicky, but calling it off may cost him his life. Because the past that Vin pursues is also pursuing him, and a confrontation with destiny and vengeance awaits him at Swains Lock.

buy SWAINS LOCK for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!

River Trilogy, book 2

In New Mexico in 1924, archaeologist Owen Thompson drowns his insomnia and nightmares with whiskey. When his wife leaves with his young daughter, Owen knows he must find an answer to the question that has haunted him for twenty-two years: to what degree was he responsible for his brother’s killing?

Owen was seventeen on the night in 1902 when his brother Drew and the outlaw Gig Garrett shot each other in a burning cabin near the Potomac River. Owen had planned to accompany Drew to Garrett’s cabin that night. So had Henry Zimmerman. Now Zimmerman has resurfaced in Maryland, and Owen is determined to find out what role the fugitive heroin dealer played in Drew’s death. That’s the only way he can understand the consequences of his own failure that night.

So Owen returns home and poses as a drug buyer. He arranges to meet Zimmerman at night on an abandoned scow beside the wrecked canal. Over rounds of moonshine he tries to persuade Zimmerman — at gunpoint when necessary — to reveal his motives on the night Drew and Garrett died.

When Zimmerman says his final assessment of Gig Garrett was forged in the Yukon Territory during the Klondike gold rush, Owen forces him to tell the Klondike story. Then Owen must decide how much of the story to believe. He learns during the encounter that the dissipated Zimmerman is still dangerous — and that they can’t both survive the night.

buy BURYING ZIMMERMAN for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!

River Trilogy, book 3

In April of 1924, Jake Reed is twenty-two years old — jobless, friendless, and just out of prison. When the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is destroyed by a flood, Jake’s locktender father drops him off forty miles downriver at an abandoned lock. Jake’s job is to spend a week or two clearing flood debris, then ride home with two mules.

But the mundane assignment takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a mysterious girl is hiding out in his father’s deserted lockhouse. She claims not to know her own name — she only remembers the four days since the flood. Jake says he’ll call her April and let her stay while he tries to find someone who recognizes her.

But he soon learns that the county sheriff wants to question a girl named Katie Elgin. After an evening with Katie, a young man named Lee Fisher washed up dead in the flood with a slashed neck. A hill-country fixer named Cole is also looking for the Elgin girl, convinced she stole something valuable from his moonshiner partners during the flood.

Jake hopes the resurfacing shards of April’s memory will confirm her identity and provide an alibi. Until that happens, he needs to keep her safe from her pursuers. But when the mosaic of remembered scenes begins to hint that April may be less innocent than she appears, Jake must decide how far he will go to protect her — and whether he can let go of her past, and his own.

buy IF IT IS APRIL for $2.99 on Amazon or download for free through Kindle Unlimited!