This Rec League request was sent in by Jessi:
Hello! I know this might not be what other people are looking for right now, but I have been devouring post apocalyptic romances and I need more to feed the beast. So far, I’ve read everything by Kit Rocha, Claire Kent’s Last Light, Alyssa Cole’s Radio Silence trilogy and most recently Kat Bostick’s Moonshine. I don’t care what type of apocalypse it is, and I really don’t need much plot, if that makes sense. What I really like is the dynamic of two people alone at the end of the world who have to rely on each other. You could maybe in substitute an extreme forced proximity (like Adriana Anders’ Whiteout). Any suggestions?
Sarah: Ok, a lot of these recs are older (10+ years) but this was a bit of a trend back then
Angelfall by Susan Ee ( A | BN ). Post apoc with angels – but it’s YA. It was too violent for me. The heroine’s sister is kidnapped and she decides to get her back.
Ellen Connor, who I believe was two authors, had a trilogy, starting with Nightfall. There’s a lot of white tank tops and guns on the other covers. I think that was how you could tell it was a post-apoc romance. White tank and a big gun? Yes. Leather pants and that spiky metal belt? Urban Fantasy.
Yes, Ellen Connor was Ann Aguirre and Carrie Lofty.
A newer book: Kylie Scott’s Flesh ( A | BN | K | AB ) is a zombie post-apoc erotic menage romance.
Tara: I also have one that I read almost a decade ago, so I don’t know if it would still hold up, but The Three by Meghan O’Brien ( A | BN | K | AB ) is post apocalyptic where three people get together in the end. Content warning because it read to me at the time like a mashup of The Road and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Sarah: There’s Nora Robert’s Year One, ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) which is more magic/fantasy dystopia.
Elyse: Trigger warning: that series contains sexual violence.
What post-apocalyptic books would you recommend? Let us know!
I strongly recommend Megan Crane’s Viking Dystopian Romance series (EDGE OF OBSESSION, EDGE OF TEMPTATION, EDGE OF CONTROL, and EDGE OF POWER), published in 2016 & 2017. These are very gritty, interconnected stories set in a post-apocalyptic world where rains and floods are regular features of life and a patriarchal, evangelical system (natch) controls most of the world except for where the warrior Vikings live. The romances are self-contained (and very sexy), but there’s an overarching storyline about the efforts to restart the electrical grid via satellite communications in order to dismantle the oppressive government. Very good, but quite a few triggers so read the synopses carefully. (Side note: Megan Crane is also Caitlin Crews—one of my Queens of angsty heartache. Regardless of the name she publishes under, her work is always excellent.)
John Gilstrap’s Victoria Emerson series is a good read. There are three books so far; the first is CRIMSON PHOENIX. It’s unusual because the leader of the dystopian crew is female.
Rebecca Zanetti’s Mercury Striking is the first book about an apocalyptic pandemic. I read it a long time ago, and didn’t like it enough to continue in the series, but I don’t remember why.
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel is lit fix, not romance, but still very good.
Kresley Cole’s Arcana series is YA, but features post apocalyptic tarot card fighting. The last book comes out next April.
My first thought was the Rebecca Zanetti series mention by @Steph. I read three or four of the books before my short attention span caught on something else. They were dark and different with the hero and heroine not really wanting the role. There’s also Laura Thalassa’s Four Horseman series. The first is PESTILENCE. I seem to remember a lot of controversy and trigger things about these books. It’s free on KU. I started the book and made it about 1/2 through before once again getting distracted but lots of people dug it. A book that deserves more love than it gets is B.E. Sanderson’s BLINK OF AN I. Again, unlikely heroine takes on the role. One last rec, GIRL UNDER GLASS by Monica Enderle Pierce. It’s dystopian SciFi set in the Pacific NW in the year 2032. It’s the first in a 2-book dualogy.
Kit Rocha’s BEYOND and MERCENARY LIBRARIANS series. Sun flares short out the electric grid (I guess this is a thing now) & America breaks down into a collection of independent territories run by various bad guys. BEYOND feels like the Wild West & the sex is pretty much a free for all, while LIBRARIANS is more restrained sexually & features more tech. There’s also a BEYOND spin-off series, GIDEON’S RIDERS, that’s more hippie/biker, oriented around a new religion.
The Deadland Saga trilogy by Rachel Oakes is a comfort reread for me, as strange as that might sound (since it deals with zombies!). I think it is because there is so much character development over the series.
How did I not know this existed?!
I have not read them yet, but A Wilderness Within by Emma Castle and Last Light by Claire Kent are both on my TBR.
The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews is extremely post apocalyptic vibes, even though there’s magic and shifters involved. The setting is very in your face with the recent apocalypse.
Breakdown: A Love Story by Katherine Amt Hanna, free on kindle. One reviewer wrote “In spite of its post-apocalypse setting, this book is really about love, loss, friendship and community.”
Alisha Rai’s NIGHT WHISPERS unfortunately only available in used paperback – I found a copy and read it. Check for content warnings, it is a few years since I read it.
Shoshanna Evers’ “Pulse Trilogy” is an Erotic Romance series set in a dystopian NY after an electromagnetic pulse destroys the power grid (as it always seems to do – these books generally make me think we’re one good EMP or SME away from a trip back to 1820).
I really enjoyed Shoshanna’s erotic books, but she became a devout Christian and switched tracks. At least she didn’t pull her backlist, because they all seem to be available at Amazon.
Vivienne Jackson’s Wanted and Wired series? I’m not sure I’ve actually read it, but it seems to fit pretty well.
ACK. Not SME, stupid autocorrect. CME – CME!
(although the power grids in these books could use some SMEs on shielding their systems from pulses and other high-energy exposure events)
Claire Kent Kindled series was pretty good it is on KU. Thanks for all of the above recs, just added a bunch to my KU list!
Run. Do not walk to Amazon. My library was able to get some of these via interlibrary loan. Then we hit a roadblock when the only holding library REFUSED to loan them so I bit the bullet and purchased the rest. Sarah Lyons Fleming has a series of linked zombie apocalypse trilogies that are freaking awesome. Super characters.
Until The End of the World Series – 3.5 books
The City series – 3 books (I’m on book two)
The Cascadia series- 2 books, 1 in the works
I took a deep dive into the recesses of my brain to remember the ‘All that Remains” trilogy by SM Shade. I think it should fit the bill, but when I’ve read the author more recently some of the characters or attitudes have struck my sensitive self as a shade (heh) too callous/unkind/misogynistic.
Elle Kennedy’s Outlaws series is set in a post-apocalyptic world with those inside the city having all the comforts and none of the freedom, and those outside the walls living a hardscrabble existence but controlling their own lives. The first book, Claimed, has a particularly compelling conflict.
Lily Mayne’s Monstrous series is a monster apocalypse, m/m fantasy romance. Background: 20 ago, monsters rose on earth and began a new age of civilization. Most humans now live in military-controlled, cramped and dirty cities along the coasts, and the rest of the US (most of it) is known as the Wastes. The Wastes are desolate and dangerous, full of roaming monsters. There are 6 books so far, always between a monster and a human, but there’s enough variety in the characters, relationships and stories to keep it interesting. Includes fairly explicit m/m sex. There are also descriptions of cruelty, torture and violence (NOT between the main characters but they are sometimes victims).
Bec McMaster’s Burned Lands trilogy was good – first one was Nobody’s Hero. If I remember right there were also werewolves in those.
EAT, SLAY, LUST ON ZOMBIE ROAD by Jillian Stone. Everything else is more post-apocalyptic with a whiff of romance. I’d recommend Charlaine Harris’ Gunnie Rose series, but it’s more alt history with a slice of paranormal.
Flash Bang series by Meghan March
Juniper Unraveling series by Keri Lake
Surviving Ashes series by Kennedy Layne
Zombie Apocalypse Series by Gwendolyn Harper
Outlasting Series by LK Magill
The Refuge Trilogy by Annabelle McInnes
The Promise Me series by Paige Weaver
Rebecca Zanatti’s Scorpius Syndrome hit pay dirt with book 4, Storm Gathering.
My favorite quote was
The only way civilization will survive is if the women just take over.
/I shall stop trying to use hash tags.
The Northern Waste series by Eve Silver(Eve Kenin). The first book is called Driven.
“In the harsh Northern Waste where human life is worth little, ice trucker Raina Bowen has learned to keep her eyes open and her knife close at hand. She’s spent her life on the run, one step ahead of the megalomaniac who hunts her. All she wants is to stay out of trouble and haul her load of grain to Gladow Station—but trouble finds her in the form of a sexy stranger called Wizard. He has the trucking pass she needs, and she’s going to get it even if she has to drag him out of a brawl. She may have rescued him, but Raina’s not foolish enough to see Wizard as anything close to helpless. He’s hard and honed and full of secrets—secrets that may destroy them both.
As they race across the Waste, trying to outrun rival truckers, ice pirates, and the powerful man bent on their destruction, Raina’s forced to admit that trouble’s found her. And this time, there’s nowhere left to run.”
Ann Aguirre has a YA series which I also really enjoyed–the Razorland series: Enclave, Outpost, Horde, and Vanguard. And one of her adult scifi series, a spinoff of Sirantha Jax called the Dred Chronicles, has a post-apocalyptic feel to it.
Alyssa Cole’s Off the Grid series is on my TBR too…
it’s not post apocalyptic–it’s in space, for starters–but if you loved kit rocha’s mercenary librarians it has an extremely similar vibe that (for me at least) scratches the same itch: jessie mihalik’s hunt the stars and eclipse the moon.
The Home I Find with You by Skye Kilean. M/M bi poly romance set in post-appoc Colorado. Set in the near-ish future after a civil war. Remarkably hopeful.
I’m not a fan of post-apocalyptic (maybe I’m scared its too close). However three that stand out in my memory:
A) Faerene Apocalypse Series by Jenny Schwartz – College-aged girl surviving when Mythological creatures and magic cause an apocalypse and all the plastics disappear.
B) Ignite Series by Nora Phoenix – Three young men surviving when aliens land (more dystopian than apocalyptic?)
C) The Great Turning by Lesli Richardson – 100 years after the apocalypse a soldier traveling home to his husband along with the assassin he meets along the way.
I thought I’d read a ton of this type of book, but looking back through my library, it looks like most of them are actually more in the sci-fi realm instead of romance.
Though one series that I don’t see mentioned here, yet, are the zombie apocalypse books by Kylie Scott: Flesh, Skin, and Room with a View.
Ruby Dixon has a post-apocalyptic series that starts with Fire in His Blood, where society has broken down because a rift has opened between here and another planet, unleashing dragons onto Earth. It’s more serious in tone than the Ice Planet Barbarian books, and women face all the challenges that you might expect in fairly desperate straits, but they’re not especially challenging or very very dark.
Don’t know if it’s okay to rec fanfic, but I’ve been reading a lot of Dramione (Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter) fic lately, and so much of the good stuff is post-apocalyptic in feel – that’s what I like about it. Some has had the serial numbers filed off to be posted as original fic, like the Cruel and Beautiful World series by L Stoddard Hancock. Other fics can still be read online, like Love in a Time of the Zombie Apocalypse by Rizzlewrites and Manacled by SenLinYu (they’re on AO3, but you can just google them). Mind the warnings!
Anna Hackett has a series – Hell Squad – set in Australia after an alien invasion destroyed large parts of the world, and hero & heroine are fighting to survive and defeat aliens. 20 book series starting with Marcus. Cr/tw war, etc.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Sharing Knife series (four novels plus one novella and they really should be read in order).
Carrie Vaughn’s BANNERLESS duology + novella is more mystery than romance (although the heroine’s strong love for her (living) husband is omnipresent), but it has incredible worldbuilding and an acceptance of differences (explicit in the novella). Our world failed because of a series of events that just cascaded into one another, but the aftermath was a group of people trying to help one another. The novella is a prequel of sorts, showing the start of the society covered in the books. It is hopeful post-apocalyptic fiction, as it were. I hope she writes more of these.
I liked the idea of the SCORPIUS SYNDROME books and thought the worldbuilding was excellent, but the constant spanking, before H/H even knew each other was maddening – infantilizing the female scientist who is supposed to be able to find a cure in the first chapter (or so) is rage-inducing. I didn’t finish the series after book 3, which is a shame because the worldbuilding was .
Can’t wait to expand my list of books with your suggestions!