Before The Roads Closed

Three alerts in twenty minutes. A wildfire, a flash flood, and a power shutoff, all converging on the same two roads out.

Renata Sokolov reads terrain for a living, and the terrain around Ashwood Ridge is telling her something the county’s containment numbers are not. The Garner Complex fire has turned toward the ridge. The creek crossings on the only way out are already running higher than any August she can remember. And in six hours, the power company is going to kill every traffic signal, message sign, and cell tower between here and the highway.

When a volunteer coordinator calls with five vehicles and sixteen people who missed every organized convoy, Renata has one window to get them out before her own calculations close it. She has learned the hard way what “not here yet” is worth, and she is not going to find out the same way twice.

Before The Roads Closed opens The Last Safe Route, a series of near-present disaster survival thrillers about the guides who move people through catastrophes that are compounding faster than anyone official is willing to admit.

Perfect for readers of grounded survival thrillers, plausible near-future disaster, and a heroine whose competence is the only thing standing between strangers and the emergency closing in behind them.