Well friends, I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, and I finally get to tell you. I went and wrote a book. Not a pamphlet about canning peaches or a guide to keeping your generator clean. A real novel. It’s called Bitterroot Pass, and it’s the first story in what I hope will be a whole series following a man named Silas Cole through the roughest kind of collapse you can imagine.

Now before you roll your eyes and say, “Kyle, you’ve finally lost it,” let me just tell you this: this story has been gnawing at me for years. The what-if of it all. What if the grid went down for real? Not for a couple hours like that summer storm we had last July, but for good. What would we do? Who would we become when the silence stretched too long?

Silas Cole and the End of the Quiet

Silas isn’t some superhero. He’s a smokejumper from Montana, the kind of guy who knows the smell of sap and smoke better than he knows the smell of his own aftershave. When everything goes dark after an EMP takes out the power grid, he doesn’t try to save the world. He just tries to get through the night. That’s what I like about him. He’s human. He’s stubborn. And he’s not prepared for everything, not even close.

The book follows him as he tries to guide a small bunch of survivors through the Bitterroot Mountains. Those of you who’ve ever been through that country know it’s not a place that forgives mistakes. It’s raw, it’s beautiful, and in winter it’ll eat a man alive if he’s not careful. When I was writing those scenes, I could almost feel the crunch of snow under my boots and hear the sound of the wind clawing through the trees.

The Kind of Story I Wanted to Read

I didn’t want to write another glossy, gun-filled, Hollywood kind of apocalypse. I wanted to write about what survival feels like. The doubt, the grit, the long nights when you wonder if you’ll make it to morning. Silas meets folks who are trying their best, and some who have stopped trying altogether. There’s a paramilitary group in there too, the kind of people who think collapse means open season. And there’s a secret buried up in those mountains that could change everything they thought they knew about why it all fell apart.

If you’ve read The Road or watched Jericho back in the day, you’ll feel right at home here. It’s got that mix of realism, tension, and heart that keeps you up later than you planned.

A Gift for My Readers

Now here’s the part I’m excited about. Bitterroot Pass is free today and today only. Yup, you heard me right. Free. If you’ve been following me long enough to trust that I’m not going to waste your time, this is your chance to see what I’ve been working on between firewood runs and Darlene’s pot roast dinners.

You can grab your copy right here: https://www.amazon.com/Bitterroot-Pass-Post-Apocalyptic-Survival-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0G216LFB7

So if you like a story that’ll make you think about how thin the line is between order and chaos, about how ordinary people can turn extraordinary when they have to, go give it a read. Silas Cole’s world might be fiction, but the questions it asks sure aren’t.