The Breakdown — John Lawrence

The world economy is in upheaval. Crude oil deliveries are strangled, and America is facing a total social and economic collapse as the dominoes begin to fall. A conservative Iowa housewife puts her husband and two children on a plane for Washington DC hours before the collapse begins. In the following days, she watches helplessly as all electricity and cellular service fails. Rioting and looting take hold in all the major cities, and the mobs threaten to spread outward. In her comfortable farmhouse outside the town of Harlan, Grace Meyers plans her options. Her husband has prepared well, and she has plenty of supplies and resources to count on, most of them stored away in their home. What she hasn't counted on is the degree to which she'll have to go to defend herself and her home. She also hasn't realized some of her own personal needs, and what she'll do to satisfy them. Faced with intruders and violent convicts who want her supplies, Grace protects what is hers with an ability she didn't know she possessed. Her mind toils with the decisions, her heart aches for the return of her husband and children, and her body starves in ways she never knew. Sparks of hope emerge, and new temptations present to her as she considers her stable, safe homelife never again being what it was. Grace realizes the country has changed. She must now bring to bear all the best resources she can muster to protect herself, provide compassion for others, and plan for the future, one that will throw most Americans more than a century into the past.