Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...

Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired a superhuman sense) while others for the worse (those who acquired a taste for human flesh). Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the zombies that are on the hunt, Alex meets up with Tom - an Army veteran who escaped one war only to find something worse at home - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to find food, shelter, while fighting off the 'Changed' and those desperate to stay alive.

A tense and involving adventure with shocks and sudden plot twists that will keep teen and adult readers gripped.

This is book 1 in The Ashes Trilogy .

There are 352 pages in this book. This book was published 2011 by Hachette Children's Group .

Ilsa J. Bick is a child psychiatrist, a film scholar, a former Air Force major, and an award-winning, bestselling author of short stories, e-books and novels. Ilsa lives with her family in rural Wisconsin.