The Precipice People, book one in The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is officially out today!
In an increasingly techno-fascist world, ten citizens must answer for themselves the question of when to say goodbye to a dying way of life. A few answer the question quickly; most won’t face it until it’s too late. But when society is on the brink of collapse, everyone must confront it eventually.
If you love tense, near-future dystopian fiction about survival, awakening sovereignty, and what happens when the precipice you’re standing on finally gives way—or if you just need an outlet to channel your righteous anger at the world—then The Precipice People is for you.
The Precipice People is the first book in a trilogy, and you won’t have to wait long for books 2 and 3. They’ll be here in November and January.
Hardcovers are coming soon. Join my newsletter if you want to be notified when that happens. (In the meantime, you’ll get a bunch of other goodies, too.)
Thank you so much for reading and for supporting this launch. If you pick up a copy, I’d love to hear your thoughts—drop a review on your favorite site or leave a comment below and let me know how you’re liking the first stage of The Epoch Rite of Passage! ❤️
In the first half of 2026, I was spending a lot of time thinking about the massive transition we all seem to be navigating.
If you feel like the world you loved is vanishing and turning into something you do not want—that no one wants—leaving you to navigate a landscape that no longer makes sense—you are not alone. You are not crazy. You are simply in the middle of a transition.
We all are.
But…
Why is this happening?
How do we get through it?
How will it end?
I felt compelled to explore these questions
It seemed to me that people felt powerless in part because they couldn’t imagine change—both what it might look like when it was done or how to get there. So I put some characters into our world and propelled them toward a cliff to find out what would happen if we don’t change—and what’s possible if we do.
The characters aren’t just trying to survive a financial and societal collapse. That’s the first step, sure, but not the only one. The next steps are even harder:
How do they reclaim their sovereignty in a world that has convinced them they don’t have any?
How do they maintain their sovereignty and their humanity when it’s time to rebuild and the old “poisoned bricks” of control are the only tools they’ve ever known?
Finding a Path Forward
At some point it occurred to me that, in a very real sense, we are all living in the second-ish of three stages in a massive, collective Rite of Passage.
So when I started to write the trilogy, I broke the characters’ journey down into three stages—the stages of a rite of passage—to help me map their journey toward freedom:
Stage 1: Separation — The terrifying moment of realizing the system isn’t “broken”—it’s functioning exactly as it was designed, and to survive it you have to detach.
Stage 2: Liminality — The space between worlds, where you are free from the old system consciously but your body still has to live with in it and your subconscious is still reacting to its fearmongering and its “official” truths.
Stage 3: Incorporation — The act of co-creating a new order based on love, freedom, and individual sovereignty, rather than by fear, violence, and control.
It is Possible…
There are 3 mindset shifts that help—and might just be necessary—to get through each stage of a rite-of-passage transition: from the terrifying Separation of the old world, through the anxious uncertainty of the Liminal space, to the scary and satisfying moments of Reincorporation. A mere three shifts can help us get through the first two stages so that by the time we’re in the Reincorporation stage, we’re not just surviving but helping to create the new beginning.
Because it’s never just about surviving. It’s about thriving. It’s about freedom and personal sovereignty. I wanted to prove to myself that sovereignty can emerge in impactful ways when things look the most bleak and survival and conformity are no longer enough.
I wanted to capture that precise moment when someone finally stops looking for permission, stops playing by the “official” rules, and realizes that they have been free all along—and that they can act on that freedom even now.
The Result is The Epoch Rite of Passage
The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is for readers who wish 1984 could have ended another way. It was inspired by ICE in Minnesota and by a comment I read that was made to Disney after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended. It said, “Didn’t you watch Andor? It’s your own show!” It occurred to me that maybe, for some people, when a story’s world is too far removed from the real world, the themes don’t always hit home as strongly as they could. So the trilogy is set in the real world—today’s real world—as much as possible.
Also important to me was ending the trilogy in a better place than it started without having to resort to violence. Too many dystopian stories end violently, which I’ve always found disheartening. It took me three books to move the “High States,” a fictional country that looks a lot like the early 2026 United States, from a growing fascist state into something more free, but I did eventually get the characters there.
I’ve been in a mood for dystopian stories after finishing The Epoch Rite of Passage. I went looking for some new ones to add to my TBR pile, and I found a few that look interesting. These dystopian novels lean more toward satire rather than romance–just as I like it. One thing they have in common? They all feel a little too close to home. Here’s hoping they also offer glimpses of more positive paths forward.
First up…
NØT NØW
by Neil AnthØny
A speculative thriller about engineered consciousness, surveillance, and resistance. From the jacket copy: “In 2063, the State does not simply watch its citizens. It scores them, allocates them, corrects them, and improves them. Behaviour is currency. Compliance is survival. The body is no longer private property.”
What you’ll find inside: thought-provoking and fast-paced storytelling, great world-building.
A multi-perspective novel set in a near-future Paris reshaped by climate urgency. An environmental engineer’s good intentions have less than desirable consequences as she sets out to rescue the world with a green urban project–that a future niece must now live in.
What you’ll find inside: thought-provoking and lyrical storytelling, immersive world-building.
A novel that explores the current trajectory of women’s loss of agency. From the jacket copy: “In 2086, corporations are monitoring fertility. Abortion is illegal. And the last woman alive who can perform the procedure is in hiding.”
What you’ll find inside: thought-provoking and gripping storytelling, fiction that pulls no punches.
That rounds out our list of new releases to read if you love dystopian satire. But if you burn through all of those this weekend and find yourself wanting just a little bit more dystopia, I have a trilogy that explores a very similar dynamic. It’s called The Epoch Rite of Passage, and you can find the first book right here.
I’ve been thinking about whether or not to include a trigger warning for The Epoch Rite of Passage. My kneejerk reaction to trigger warnings is that I don’t like them. I don’t like spoilers for a book I’m about to read.
For the first book I did that I thought probably needed a trigger warning, I put a link in the front of the book for anyone serious about needing to read it. It seemed to work fine. No one complained.
But if you keep the content warning really high-level with absolutely no details, are you really spoiling anything? Or are you actually just giving a little extra hook, maybe even convincing someone on the fence to read the story?
I’m liking this idea, this idea of using the trigger warning as a hook into the story. In fiction, the general rule is that you’re never supposed to “tell” (because you’re supposed to “show”). But in a trigger warning—you get to tell. You get to say, look at all this interesting stuff that happens in the book!
Last night I felt the urge to draft something of a hookish trigger warning to include in the first book of The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy.
Here’s what I came up with:
The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is a subversive dystopian political satire set in the increasingly techno-fascist world of the High States and includes scenes of authorized and state-sanctioned violence, fearmongering, gaslighting, spying, graphic language, theft, kidnapping, child endangerment, breaking and entering, blackmail, sexual assault, murder… you know, the usual stuff you see on the nightly news, up to and including a bloviating talking-head attempting to normalize it all. Mind your mental health and, if you need to, save this trilogy for another time. Otherwise, welcome to the High States—some say the greatest country in the world! But don’t get too comfortable. It won’t exist like this for long…
What do you think?
[some time later…]
I just saw it in my email, after posting it, and I had some thoughts:
The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is a subversive dystopian political satire set in the increasingly techno-fascist High States, a world with authorized and state-sanctioned violence, fearmongering, gaslighting, spying, graphic language, theft, kidnapping, child endangerment, breaking and entering, blackmail, sexual assault, murder… you know, the usual stuff you see on the nightly news, up to and including a bloviating talking-head attempting to normalize it all. Mind your mental health and, if you need to, save this outing for another time. Still here? Then welcome to the High States—some say it’s the greatest country in the world. Watch your Ps and Qs and don’t get too comfortable. It won’t exist as-is for long…
