The Restoration War

Central Kentucky has survived famine, plague, political purges, and the collapse of its own government. Now the old United States has returned, or something claiming its name has.
 

The Continuity Union enters Woodford County with preserved seed, disciplined troops, working radios, and documents naming it the lawful national government. Exhausted communities welcome the promise of food and order. Others see an occupation hidden inside familiar words.
 

Daniel Mercer has no office, no army, and little public trust. Exiled from the government he helped create, he is pulled between Emma's temporary defense coalition and a restoration movement that could make his worst compromises lawful after the fact. Then Aaron, Daniel's estranged brother, joins the Union as a logistics officer. His access may offer the best chance to prevent conquest, or deliver the Mercer family into the hands of Marshal Gideon Voss.
 

As rival governments fight for Kentucky's harvest, Daniel must decide what can be destroyed to deny an army, which warnings deserve belief, and whether legal continuity without living consent is anything more than occupation.
 

The Restoration War is Book Seventeen of The Ash Commonwealth, an extremely dark post-apocalyptic political thriller series about one family's role in building, corrupting, and remaking government after national collapse.