Sneak Preview: Heartlanders
Part 1 of 4 for our Paid Subscribers
“Heartlanders” earned an Honorable Mention in the 2025 Ark Prize Contest, one of three manuscripts to do so. The publisher received more than one hundred entries, with a word limit of 80,000, and nothing more than a prompt of ‘America 2076.’ Imagine a story like National Treasure, a setting like Fallout, and a roster of characters like G.I. Joe, and you’ve got Heartlanders.
The world fell in 2056.
Twenty years after a catastrophic solar storm smothered the Earth with EMP, mankind has been hurled backward into the technological equivalent of the 19th century. A few isolated pockets avoided the direct onslaught and remained intact. The world spends the next twenty years staggering back to its feet. In this new dynamic, survivor Frank Rammage has one final mission: keep America from falling for good.
A refinery owner, father of four, and lifelong Kryptonaut, Frank belongs to a hidden order sworn to protect the Heartland Shrine — the ancient covenant site where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and faithful presidents since have renewed the nation’s bond with God. The covenant must be renewed every fifty years, or divine protection lifts. The tricentennial is six days away.
Guided by artifacts hidden since the Civil War, Frank, his eighteen-year-old son Ronan, and a tight crew of brothers-in-arms race from the mud-choked spillway of Prado Dam in California to the ancient mounds of Ohio. They find an unlikely ally in the President of the United States. Together they’ll face armed separatist Marines, a traitor inside the President’s inner circle, and the agonizing truth that saving their country may cost them the family they’re fighting for.
Warm, unflinching, and steeped in the covenants that bind generations, Heartlanders tells the story of an ordinary man who refuses to let his nation forget its destiny.
