I have been looking forward to this issue all week. I told myself I would do a standard write up. Something about winter storage potatoes or how I jury rigged a siphon pump to work off gravity instead of the battery that kept quitting. But every time I sat down, I kept thinking, No, this is the week. This is the week I finally talk about the book.

Some of you have heard me mention it in passing, usually when I was a little too tired and had that glazed look in my eyes like I had been living half in another world. The book is called Bitterroot Pass. It is the first in what will be a series. At least that is the plan if the good Lord is willing and the creeks behave themselves.

The main character is a man named Silas Cole. He is the sort of man who knows how to do things without needing to talk about them. You know the type. Probably you have known a few. Maybe you are one.

I wrote the earliest parts of this book during the kind of mornings that are mostly just a cold kitchen, a quiet house, and the ticking of the thermostat before it kicks on. Darlene would be asleep. The dog would look at me as if to say, I respect your choices but I will not be participating. And I would write.

I think I needed to.

Why This Story Pulled at Me

I have spent decades thinking about what happens when the world gets thinner. When the systems that make everything feel smooth and normal begin to fail. I am not talking about doom prophecy. I am talking about living long enough to know that stability is not guaranteed just because last week was fine.

Maybe it is the Missouri storms I grew up with. The way the sky could turn a shade of green you do not forget. Maybe it is the year the river flooded so bad half the county seemed underwater. Maybe it is raising kids and then watching Wendy raise her kids, Luke and Charlotte, out there in Oregon east of the Cascades where the weather can turn on a dime and the mountains always look like they are thinking about something serious.

I wanted to put a story out there that told the truth about how people act when comfort is gone. How they love. How they break. How they hold on.

Who Silas Cole Is

Silas is not a hero in the shiny sense. He is not built for speeches. He is a man who has seen the worst in people and still has not given up on the idea that something worth saving remains.

He lives in the kind of Montana that does not care about your schedule or your feelings. The kind where you can walk a mile and feel like the mountains are deciding whether you belong there or not. He wants a quiet life. He wants to be left alone. The world, however, is not interested in anyone’s wishes.

Trouble arrives. And the question becomes not how to fight it but how to stay human while you do.

What Makes This Story Different

I wanted realism. Not action movie logic. Not the kind of survival where someone shakes off frostbite like they just needed a snack. In this story:

If someone runs out of ammo, they run out.
If a wound gets infected, it matters.
If a wrong choice is made, you live with it.

I spent time researching radio blackout conditions. The way a person breathes when their adrenaline is wearing off. How much wood it really takes to survive a winter, and how quickly you can lose that wood if it gets wet.

I wrote this book for people who understand that preparation is not paranoia. It is responsibility.

How You Can Read It

Now here is the part I have been eager to say.

When Bitterroot Pass launches, I am going to run it completely free for a short window. Every subscriber to this newsletter will get first access. I will send the link out in an email later this week and you will be able to download it without paying a thing.

No tricks. No hoops. Just me being grateful.

I want the people who have been with me all this time to be the ones who walk into this story first.

Keep an eye on your inbox. I will send it soon.

-Kyle Harrison