When Florida Fell, One Family Fought to Survive
A Florida EMP survival series where family, love, and moral choices matter more than gear.
Start Before the Blackout
Blood Is Thicker didn’t begin with the blackout.
Before the cabin.
Before survival became everything.
The Day Zero Files are six short stories set in the final days and hours when the world still worked—right before it didn’t.
They reveal what the Kelly family never knew—because they didn’t have these stories.
They aren’t sold on Amazon.
They were written to explain what happened—NOT TO BE SOLD
Read the moments that came before Blood Is Thicker began.
Six short stories set before Book One
No spam. No selling your email. Leave anytime.
NEW TO BRUNO BRENNAN
I didn’t start writing Blood Is Thicker because I wanted to write survival fiction.
I started because of a question that wouldn’t leave me alone:
What if the power went out while my family was scattered across Florida?
A father.
An adult son.
A daughter with a child of her own.
An elderly mother.
An ex-wife.
Hundreds of miles apart — and suddenly, the modern world is gone.
That question became Joe Kelly.
Joe is 58. He’s flawed. He’s tired. He loves his family more than he understands himself. When the lights go out, he isn’t trying to be a hero — he’s just trying to get everyone home.
That’s the kind of survival story I write.
Not gear lists.
Not invincible characters.
Not easy answers.
These are character-driven survival stories set in Florida, where love still matters, family still complicates everything, and moral choices don’t disappear just because the world ends.
The events are fictional.
The emotions are not.
If you’re here for explosions and tactics alone, this may not be your series.
If you’re here for people — for hard decisions, consequences, and the cost of protecting the ones you love
I’ll continue writing in this world as long as these characters have stories to tell.
And when they don’t, I’ll write something else—new characters, new questions, new worlds—always grounded in the same thing that matters to me most: people, relationships, and the choices we make when it counts.
Welcome.
This is where the journey begins.
Check out
Six short stories set before Book One.
Start with Family Reunion
Blood Is Thicker — Book One
When an EMP shuts down Florida, Joe Kelly’s family is scattered across three hundred miles of chaos.
His son is fighting through Miami’s collapse.
His daughter is trapped in St. Augustine with a newborn.
His elderly mother is counting on him.
Their only hope is Joe’s prepared cabin on Lake Harris.
As highways turn deadly and civilization unravels, Joe makes one promise: he will bring his family back together—no matter the cost.
Along the way, he meets Maria—resourceful, guarded, and awakening feelings Joe thought were long gone at 58. But survival in this new world demands brutal choices, and when Joe crosses lines he never imagined, his family watches. Maria watches.
And Joe must live with the man he becomes.
Rumors soon spread of New Leesburg, a town ruled by a warlord whose cruelty is becoming legend. Joe knows they should avoid it. Build strength. Stay hidden.
But Maria’s reaction to the warlord’s name tells Joe she’s hiding something—
a secret that could destroy everything they’re fighting to protect.
Family Reunion is not a story about gear or tactics.
It’s about people.
A father finding love when the world is ending.
A family pushed to moral breaking points.
And the price of protecting the ones you love.
Because when the lights go out…
Blood is thicker than anything. Even the truth.
Showdown
Blood Is Thicker — Book Two
Joe Kelly wakes to find Maria gone.
She left a letter. An explanation. A goodbye.
She’s returned to New Leesburg—a town ruled by terror—and to Chuck Warner, the man she once married and barely escaped. A tyrant whose brutality has turned fear into law.
Joe has a choice:
Stay safe at Lake Harris with his family…
or follow the woman he loves straight into hell.
There is no choice.
As Joe prepares for the most dangerous mission of his life, the past arrives uninvited. His ex-wife Paulette—the woman who abandoned their children—steps back into the cabin carrying regret, secrets, and a survivor who changes everything.
Old wounds reopen.
Family lines fracture.
And the future demands blood.
To save Maria, Joe’s group must infiltrate New Leesburg, turn Chuck’s own people against him, and confront the monster directly. But facing Chuck means facing something darker than violence.
It means choosing—again—how far Joe is willing to go to protect the people he loves.
What separates a protector from a murderer?
When does justice become something else entirely?
Showdown is the darkest chapter in the series—
a story about moral limits, leadership under fire, and the cost of surviving with your soul intact.
Because defeating a monster doesn’t end his legacy.
Some consequences don’t fade when the fighting stops.
Some choices follow you home.
Freedoms Cost
Blood Is Thicker — Book Three
They say freedom isn’t free.
Joe Kelly’s group learned that when they killed Chuck Warner. They won the fight. Built a community. Found hope.
But victory was only a down payment.
Now the bill is due.
The scars from New Leesburg run deeper than anyone expected. Two women face futures shaped by brutality no one can undo. Some wounds don’t heal—
they just teach you how to survive anyway.
When Jake can no longer live with not knowing whether his brother is alive, the group faces an impossible choice. Dave was a guard at Raiford, a maximum-security prison. No word since the EMP. No proof of life. Just silence.
Joe knows the mission is dangerous. Too far. Too many unknowns.
But blood calls to blood—and Joe understands that better than anyone.
The road to Raiford tests them in ways the cabin never could. Every mile strips away certainty. Every decision carries a cost. This is what family does. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
While Joe’s group has been building something good, someone has been watching.
The Colonel.
Charismatic. Strategic. Ruthless.
He offers Joe protection, resources, power—an army strong enough to dominate what’s left of Florida. All Joe has to do is submit.
Joe refuses.
The Colonel smiles. You’ll regret this.
War comes fast.
Joe’s defenses hold. The first attack fails. But the Colonel isn’t finished.
The second strike is personal.
This time, he takes something Joe can never replace.
This is the real cost of freedom.
Not bullets. Not fear.
Loss.
The kind that breaks you.
The kind that changes what you’re fighting for.
By the end of Freedom’s Cost, Joe Kelly isn’t just defending his people anymore.
He’s hunting.
Unfinished Business
Blood Is Thicker — Book Four
Rain falls on Toni Kelly’s grave.
Joe stands in the mud as they lower his mother into the ground—murdered by The Colonel’s men.
Joe makes them a promise.
The Colonel dies.
But you don’t kill a man like The Colonel with bullets alone. He’s too smart. Too protected.
So Joe fights him with fear.
The signs begin to appear everywhere.
A skeletal hand clutching the Ace of Spades.
Three words that make hardened soldiers desert:
KELLY IS COMING.
The Colonel’s army starts to crack. Men question their orders. Suspect betrayal. Run.
Then Joe’s group stages something that becomes legend—dead soldiers posed in a bar, seated with beer bottles, smiles painted on their faces with their own blood.
Psychological warfare works.
The Colonel—once calm, charming, immaculate in white linen—begins to unravel. He sees Joe in mirrors. Trusts no one. Executes the innocent.
But he still trusts one man.
Bobby.
His lieutenant. His chess partner. His shadow.
Night after night, Bobby listens as The Colonel explains his plans. His certainty. His belief that Joe Kelly will fall.
Bobby learns the game.
And when the final confrontation comes, Bobby will have to choose a side.
That choice will change everything.
But even Joe isn’t prepared for what comes next.
Cuban soldiers in Groveland. Not raiders. Not scavengers. Trained troops. Discipline. Strategy. An organized force.
This isn’t coincidence.
Cuba doesn’t move alone. And Joe knows it.
What began as revenge for his mother becomes something far larger.
Not survival.
War.
Everything they’ve endured—the cabin, the battles, the losses, the secrets of Day Zero—has been preparation for this moment.
Joe Kelly is about to learn why Florida fell.
Why the lights went out.
And why they are the ones standing in the way of what comes next.
Revenge was personal.
What’s coming is for Florida’s future.