Attention all citizens. Texas is now an independent state. Remain calm. Jobs will be allotted. Resources will be allocated.

There’re worse things than sleeping in a locked cellar… Some jerk breaking down the door, determined to do unholy things to my sisters and me; burying said jerk after I blow a hole through him. So, yeah, there’re worse things.

Forty years after a mega-drought has wrought devastation, the USA is divided between the drought-plagued west and the flooded east. With jobs in Texas scarcer than a dust-free day, nineteen-year-old Analee Cooper struggles to keep her younger sisters alive through her less-than-petty thieving, until a right-wing militia takeover of Texas separates her from them. But hope is at hand when Analee is plucked to work with a shadowy organization known as CLIMA-INNOVA, who need her survival and thieving skills for a last shot at attaining plans and equipment that might yet save some of the US. Still, stealing back into Texas, acquiring the crucial items, and getting her sisters out won’t be easy. With Texas on lockdown and under martial control, Analee’s testing times are just beginning…

Carla Rehse’s novel explores loyalty and ties against a backdrop of global warming and drought. “Especially with all the wildfires igniting in so many countries, I wanted to create something environmentally relevant, to make people think about where the planet is headed,” Carla says. “But this is still a story about people: about family, love, what brings us together—about the lengths we’ll go to protect those we love. And I get to ask to the question, how many bad things can you do before you’re no longer good?”

Citizens, remain calm... Texas is now an independent nation... Jobs will be allotted... Resources will be allocated...

“A quick-witted, timely thriller with impeccably balanced heart and grit.”
– Lilla Glass, author of the forthcoming series The Reel of Rhysia

Carla Rehse is the author of Pink Lock Picks and Sequined Witch Hats (2017) and The Accidental Gamekeeper (2021), the first entry in The Accidental Midlife Trilogy. Although not a native Texan, Carla prides herself on having mastered the correct usage of the colloquialisms “y’all” and “bless your heart.”