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The Prodigals #1-3
The Prodigals - The Complete Epic: An EMP Apocalyptic Survival Fiction
A coordinated EMP attack over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts sends American reeling.
Technology that is essential for everyday life was either crippled or destroyed. Communications, transportation, medical, water, and sewer treatment had been shut down in an instant. The American military was still largely intact, but the bases that depended on civilian infrastructure were now unusable, forcing the military to move to remote bases outside its continental borders. Cities and towns left their own, descend into chaos as the government struggles to prepare for what might be coming next.
This is what the world wakes up to on Saturday, September 5th. The Raydon family, scattered across the state of Washington, had been prepared for this. Their father had seen it coming and when the unthinkable happens, they know making it back to the family ranch is their best hope.
The Prodigals, published as a series of three separate A Journey Home in the Dark, The Wrath of Vengeance, and The Lost Sheep. The first two books, though written months apart, follow the same timeline, beginning with the explosion of three EMPs and the immediate aftermath.
A Journey Home in the Dark follows the Raydon Family as they journey from various locations in Washington State to their family home in a remote corner. It is a family drama about people that care very much for each other and realize that their best chance for survival is together. Facing the increasing chaos and danger, each begins the journey home.
The Raydon family tells the story of the domestic response to the attack and details how overburdened the government is and unprepared people are to cope. The home front has been left on its own and tribalism takes hold. But there is another side to the story. What is America doing to fight back against those that brazenly attacked her?
The Wrath of Vengeance follows Major Aaron Styles as he leads the military response to the attack. His determine what happened and what is going to happen next. It is a puzzle of conspiracy that leaves the world hanging on the brink of nuclear war with China. Along the way, the Military response and the domestic response converge at the Raydon family ranch. Together, they must end the conspiracy, stop a war with China, and preserve their family through troubled times.
The Lost Sheep picks up the story later and follows the Raydon family and Major Styles as they deal with the aftermath of the fall of the United States while trying to locate lost family members. As they cross-country searching for loved ones, they must deal with an unexpected, new reality that has become America.
Technology that is essential for everyday life was either crippled or destroyed. Communications, transportation, medical, water, and sewer treatment had been shut down in an instant. The American military was still largely intact, but the bases that depended on civilian infrastructure were now unusable, forcing the military to move to remote bases outside its continental borders. Cities and towns left their own, descend into chaos as the government struggles to prepare for what might be coming next.
This is what the world wakes up to on Saturday, September 5th. The Raydon family, scattered across the state of Washington, had been prepared for this. Their father had seen it coming and when the unthinkable happens, they know making it back to the family ranch is their best hope.
The Prodigals, published as a series of three separate A Journey Home in the Dark, The Wrath of Vengeance, and The Lost Sheep. The first two books, though written months apart, follow the same timeline, beginning with the explosion of three EMPs and the immediate aftermath.
A Journey Home in the Dark follows the Raydon Family as they journey from various locations in Washington State to their family home in a remote corner. It is a family drama about people that care very much for each other and realize that their best chance for survival is together. Facing the increasing chaos and danger, each begins the journey home.
The Raydon family tells the story of the domestic response to the attack and details how overburdened the government is and unprepared people are to cope. The home front has been left on its own and tribalism takes hold. But there is another side to the story. What is America doing to fight back against those that brazenly attacked her?
The Wrath of Vengeance follows Major Aaron Styles as he leads the military response to the attack. His determine what happened and what is going to happen next. It is a puzzle of conspiracy that leaves the world hanging on the brink of nuclear war with China. Along the way, the Military response and the domestic response converge at the Raydon family ranch. Together, they must end the conspiracy, stop a war with China, and preserve their family through troubled times.
The Lost Sheep picks up the story later and follows the Raydon family and Major Styles as they deal with the aftermath of the fall of the United States while trying to locate lost family members. As they cross-country searching for loved ones, they must deal with an unexpected, new reality that has become America.
ebook
Published August 18, 2021
357 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Milton Cantellay
13 books17 followersMilt grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, in the 50’s & 60’s. He spent long days playing outside. Always the storyteller, he lived in a world of imagination, constantly surrounded by characters of his own making. Whether outside with friends or drifting off to sleep, his mind spun tales.
With a Marine Corps dad, and 4 uncles that served in WWII, playing army was a favorite pastime. From a young age, he knew that someday he would be a Marine and follow in his father's and his brother’s footsteps. When his mother and step-father, also a Marine, moved to Indiana, Milt started high school. This was during the height of the Viet Nam war. He was conflicted over his feelings about the war and his long-time ambition to be a Marine, but after graduating high school, he joined the Corps in ‘72. In boot camp, he excelled and earned the Series Honor Man Award. During those years, Viet Nam was winding down and while every Marine is a rifleman, Milt served his time stationed at the Officer Candidate School in Quantico in Virginia. It turns out he has a talent for drawing pictures, so the Marines made him an illustrator.
Married to his high school sweetheart, Marcine, they left the Corps and pursue a career in art. In 1976, Milt enrolled in the Burnley School of Professional Art in Seattle, Wa. and for the next 11 years worked as a commercial artist. At the same time, he and Marcine started their family of 3 sons and a daughter.
Eventually, Milt transitioned from illustrator to web designer to web developer to software developer and eventually to software solutions architect. Thrown into that time was also a high school teacher and business owner. However, no matter where the career journey led, the desire to tell a story was always there. Now retired, he has decided to tell these stories to you.
With a Marine Corps dad, and 4 uncles that served in WWII, playing army was a favorite pastime. From a young age, he knew that someday he would be a Marine and follow in his father's and his brother’s footsteps. When his mother and step-father, also a Marine, moved to Indiana, Milt started high school. This was during the height of the Viet Nam war. He was conflicted over his feelings about the war and his long-time ambition to be a Marine, but after graduating high school, he joined the Corps in ‘72. In boot camp, he excelled and earned the Series Honor Man Award. During those years, Viet Nam was winding down and while every Marine is a rifleman, Milt served his time stationed at the Officer Candidate School in Quantico in Virginia. It turns out he has a talent for drawing pictures, so the Marines made him an illustrator.
Married to his high school sweetheart, Marcine, they left the Corps and pursue a career in art. In 1976, Milt enrolled in the Burnley School of Professional Art in Seattle, Wa. and for the next 11 years worked as a commercial artist. At the same time, he and Marcine started their family of 3 sons and a daughter.
Eventually, Milt transitioned from illustrator to web designer to web developer to software developer and eventually to software solutions architect. Thrown into that time was also a high school teacher and business owner. However, no matter where the career journey led, the desire to tell a story was always there. Now retired, he has decided to tell these stories to you.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
March 4, 2022
Convoluted chaos! Overall a waste of my time.
I had high hopes for a new author in this genre, but was quite disappointed! I originally had given it 3 Stars, but upon giving it further deliberation, settled on only 2 Stars. Spelling, grammar and logistical errors and inconsistencies were rampant. The story MIGHT have worked as a 5-9 book series IF the author had more help with proofreading AND had fleshed out each story. Character development was poor. Throwing in a lot of tactical and technical details doesn’t improve a story. This author clearly didn’t understand it himself, and his audience wouldn’t either. This effort felt like a beginner’s craft projects with threads and ragged bits hanging everywhere. I am an actively worshipping Christian, but the forced religious references were very distracting and felt insincere, rather like sex scenes that some untalented romance authors seem to feel they need to awkwardly insert throughout their books. This author needs to learn more about the profession he is trying to pursue.
I had high hopes for a new author in this genre, but was quite disappointed! I originally had given it 3 Stars, but upon giving it further deliberation, settled on only 2 Stars. Spelling, grammar and logistical errors and inconsistencies were rampant. The story MIGHT have worked as a 5-9 book series IF the author had more help with proofreading AND had fleshed out each story. Character development was poor. Throwing in a lot of tactical and technical details doesn’t improve a story. This author clearly didn’t understand it himself, and his audience wouldn’t either. This effort felt like a beginner’s craft projects with threads and ragged bits hanging everywhere. I am an actively worshipping Christian, but the forced religious references were very distracting and felt insincere, rather like sex scenes that some untalented romance authors seem to feel they need to awkwardly insert throughout their books. This author needs to learn more about the profession he is trying to pursue.
January 27, 2023
Awful
The storyline wasn't too bad, but not nearly good enough to ignore the multitude of grammatical errors, constant verb tense changes (sometimes within the same sentence), and random POV shifts. The female characters were flat, while the male characters were difficult to connect with. The religious theme seemed forced and there was an air of "USA! USA!" throughout that was honestly a complete turn off. If you enjoy poorly written cliches, then this series is for you.
The storyline wasn't too bad, but not nearly good enough to ignore the multitude of grammatical errors, constant verb tense changes (sometimes within the same sentence), and random POV shifts. The female characters were flat, while the male characters were difficult to connect with. The religious theme seemed forced and there was an air of "USA! USA!" throughout that was honestly a complete turn off. If you enjoy poorly written cliches, then this series is for you.
December 18, 2021
Good Book...Bad Grammar
I found this book quite engaging, with well developed characters and a realistic story line. It's all quite possible, and more scary for being so realistic.
I can overlook the author having injected so much of his personal feelings, or devotion to his religion, into the story. What I cannot overlook, or forgive, is how badly proofread this was. It brought me up short way too frequently when I encountered a wrong word, typo or grammatical error, and there were so many of them.
It simply impedes the smooth flow of reading an extended length book.
Otherwise, not a bad story.
I found this book quite engaging, with well developed characters and a realistic story line. It's all quite possible, and more scary for being so realistic.
I can overlook the author having injected so much of his personal feelings, or devotion to his religion, into the story. What I cannot overlook, or forgive, is how badly proofread this was. It brought me up short way too frequently when I encountered a wrong word, typo or grammatical error, and there were so many of them.
It simply impedes the smooth flow of reading an extended length book.
Otherwise, not a bad story.
July 5, 2023
Excellent book series! Wonderful, action packed story of a family, friends, and survival. The main characters are all people of faith and conservative values. Brief glimpses of the government and the conflict, both within and external, provide a narrative that is probably pretty accurate. Story line clearly depicts both the good and evil of a misguided government and those that would garner in a new world order. The ending is surprising but, not disappointing. I highly recommend this series
October 19, 2023
Over all, a great read. Quite engaging, characters well developed. It’s the kind of book that is difficult to put down. The story line is believable, if a little scary. Each bend in the road is attention-getting. A couple of things that I found a little disappointing. First, the ending that seemed a bit rushed, it could have benefited from an additional book in the series to tie up the loose ends. The other thing that provided a bit of a distraction were several typos and grammatical errors as you get toward the end. If you can get past that, it’s well worth your time and attention.
November 21, 2021
The story was drawn out with too much detail at times. Continuity was lacking. Disliked the ending. The lack of good grammar with an abundance of mispelled words along with using the wrong word (their, there) plus the sprinkling of commas and periods where none were needed DROVE. ME. CRAZY. It was very distracting and having to go back and reconstruct a sentence every page or two interrupted the flow of the story. The author obviously did a lot of research for the book - kudos for that.
January 20, 2023
Not an easy book
The book is well written. There are typos but not so many that they are an impediment to the flow of the book. The book is Faith based but again, not an impediment to reading. The difficulty comes with the realization that this could be real. That fiction imitates real life. The strength and love of this family touches your heart. Their sorrows touch you personally. And the ending leaves you wanting more.
The book is well written. There are typos but not so many that they are an impediment to the flow of the book. The book is Faith based but again, not an impediment to reading. The difficulty comes with the realization that this could be real. That fiction imitates real life. The strength and love of this family touches your heart. Their sorrows touch you personally. And the ending leaves you wanting more.
June 6, 2022
I enjoy stories about the end of the world as we know it. Survival is a very strong topic. I enjoyed the strength of the characters in this story. But the spelling & grammatical errors are overwhelming & I feel the book suffers tremendously due to that. I probably won’t read his other books fearing that they’d be the same.
June 7, 2022
Overly religious dogma driven drivel
Started off OK, then descended rapidly.
1950's style Misogynistic rubbish, including all meals made by women, ridiculous US christian dogma almost every page, huge gaps in plot, poor & inconsistent character development.
Such a waste of time and effort, both in the writing of, and the reading of, this boorish tome.
Started off OK, then descended rapidly.
1950's style Misogynistic rubbish, including all meals made by women, ridiculous US christian dogma almost every page, huge gaps in plot, poor & inconsistent character development.
Such a waste of time and effort, both in the writing of, and the reading of, this boorish tome.
January 15, 2023
Good story line but the editing leaves a lot to be desired. I had to re-read sentences to figure out what word needed to be deleted or added to continue the story. Having to edit ruins the flow of the story and is very irritating to me. Because of that I was not as eager to read the book. Took a lot longer to finish than usual. I read about 15 books a month.?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2023
Hard to put down!
As a Christian who knows the true ending, this elaborate story of what may happen in this world before The Rapture, was indeed a profound description of what we may come across, given the craziness of our world today! God forbid! Wonderful writing, although an awful lot of error’s throughout. Regardless, it was a wonderful read.
As a Christian who knows the true ending, this elaborate story of what may happen in this world before The Rapture, was indeed a profound description of what we may come across, given the craziness of our world today! God forbid! Wonderful writing, although an awful lot of error’s throughout. Regardless, it was a wonderful read.
January 26, 2022
Great story
What a ride. EMP strike, civil war, and treachery from all sides. One family fights for each other and their home. Excellent characters. Well told story line and a lot of scary moments. I really enjoyed this book.
What a ride. EMP strike, civil war, and treachery from all sides. One family fights for each other and their home. Excellent characters. Well told story line and a lot of scary moments. I really enjoyed this book.
February 3, 2022
Real
This one deals with "the family". A look at the start of the Empire attack and how the people get home or not. They have people who attack them and don't mind violence as a means to getting what they want.
This one deals with "the family". A look at the start of the Empire attack and how the people get home or not. They have people who attack them and don't mind violence as a means to getting what they want.
February 14, 2022
Full of typos and grammatical errors
Interesting premise, but difficult to overlook the abundance of grammatical and typographical errors. Very much aimed at right wing, evangelical Christians as everyone else is labeled a liberal commie.
Interesting premise, but difficult to overlook the abundance of grammatical and typographical errors. Very much aimed at right wing, evangelical Christians as everyone else is labeled a liberal commie.
February 21, 2022
Tremendous insight of what could be.
The value of this story, for me, is a lifetime of raising your children to be strong, loving, faithful individuals. Excellent job. Whatever arises, they have the courage, compassion, faith, and life skills to rise above the chaos that they have been thrown into. The strangers that cross paths with this family are blessed with their compassion, or cursed by their strengths. Loved it.
The value of this story, for me, is a lifetime of raising your children to be strong, loving, faithful individuals. Excellent job. Whatever arises, they have the courage, compassion, faith, and life skills to rise above the chaos that they have been thrown into. The strangers that cross paths with this family are blessed with their compassion, or cursed by their strengths. Loved it.
March 17, 2022
Breathtaking
I have been in a mood to read many Post-
Apocalyptic stories. This one, however, stands out among all others because it includes the Word of God, in such a realistic way. N
I have been in a mood to read many Post-
Apocalyptic stories. This one, however, stands out among all others because it includes the Word of God, in such a realistic way. N
April 4, 2022
I did enjoy this epic EMP adventure! Over all a good general end of the world adventure, I really like reading about different scenarios for apocalyptic events & this was a little different, which is great!! A good fun read!
April 22, 2022
Good book
I enjoyed the book but did have trouble following who was who, where they came from and where they were going, especially at each new book in the series. It was probably my own fault though as I was quite sleep deprived.
I enjoyed the book but did have trouble following who was who, where they came from and where they were going, especially at each new book in the series. It was probably my own fault though as I was quite sleep deprived.
June 20, 2022
A heavy story
What an incredible story.
I’ve read a number of “heavy” books, but this one really takes the cake. The EMP brings the entire nation to its knees. I won’t tell you how it ends, but I will tell you that I am proud to be one.
What an incredible story.
I’ve read a number of “heavy” books, but this one really takes the cake. The EMP brings the entire nation to its knees. I won’t tell you how it ends, but I will tell you that I am proud to be one.
December 31, 2022
So Realistic, It’s Scary
A really great read! Both the characters and the situations were realistic, believable, and scary. I could easily imagine this entire story takin place today.
A really great read! Both the characters and the situations were realistic, believable, and scary. I could easily imagine this entire story takin place today.
January 8, 2023
PRODIGALS
Very engaging story, keep you reading and reading. A story about a family coming together and living with their beliefs. About how some people believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Maybe we should think about what we are doing or not doing.
Very engaging story, keep you reading and reading. A story about a family coming together and living with their beliefs. About how some people believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Maybe we should think about what we are doing or not doing.
January 26, 2023
It would be a mistake for you to not read this box set
Extremely well thought out and written. A story line to top the best. As if you were a real part of everything. Without a doubt, Mikey liked it also!
Extremely well thought out and written. A story line to top the best. As if you were a real part of everything. Without a doubt, Mikey liked it also!
January 30, 2023
the Prodigals
Story was very captivating in the beginning I could not put it down. Seemed a little slow in the middle but picked right back up in the last third. I did enjoy it very much and would highly recommend it.
Story was very captivating in the beginning I could not put it down. Seemed a little slow in the middle but picked right back up in the last third. I did enjoy it very much and would highly recommend it.
February 5, 2023
Couldn't put it down!
I have no words! Such an inspiring story, full of faith and hard decisions, yet horror and unbelief that something like this could happen to our beloved America. God be with us.
I have no words! Such an inspiring story, full of faith and hard decisions, yet horror and unbelief that something like this could happen to our beloved America. God be with us.
February 15, 2023
Horrible grammar. Wavered from third to first person and back again; changed tenses multiple times.
Could see the military background and knowledge, but the conservative Christian slant was overwhelmingly obvious and blatantly one-sided.
Could see the military background and knowledge, but the conservative Christian slant was overwhelmingly obvious and blatantly one-sided.
October 18, 2023
Excellent box set. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes suspense, excitement, drama and makes you fee like this could actually happen!
The author draws you in right off and its never dull.
Thanks and looking forward to reading more of his books!
The author draws you in right off and its never dull.
Thanks and looking forward to reading more of his books!
Read
June 1, 2022Exceptional
Great read unable to put it down
Not my usual read but glad I picked it up
Fell in love with the characters
Great read unable to put it down
Not my usual read but glad I picked it up
Fell in love with the characters
August 31, 2022
The most thought-provoking book I have read in a long time. Everyone should read these books.
November 11, 2022
Great Books.. all 3
This was a great little series, I’m a believer so it was right up my ally! I would definitely recommend !
This was a great little series, I’m a believer so it was right up my ally! I would definitely recommend !
Read
January 26, 2023Excellent story
Great story and engaging characters with a delightful Christian feel to the whole thing. One of the best books I have read in a long time!
Great story and engaging characters with a delightful Christian feel to the whole thing. One of the best books I have read in a long time!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews