Ridge Country: After the Collapse

Kylie Tyger’s stories take place in Ridge Country, formerly the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains part of the Appalachians. But this isn’t today’s Appalachian area. Nope. Ridge country is different because the world is different.

The world of Ridge Country has undergone dramatic and dire changes from today’s world in terms of climate, sea level, and plant and animal life. It’s not a lot like today’s Appalachians.

What’s Different in Ridge Country from Today?

It’s not the same old world we live in today. Nope, Ridge Country (that’s what they call it) consists of the ridge of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Unfortunately, due to massive, excessive climate change and unexpectedly enormous sea level rise, that ridge of mountains is almost all that’s left above sea level in the southeastern US.

Now add in an ongoing low-level radiation leak from the nuclear reactors at various places in Ridge Country and a generous heaping of climate warming and you end up with Ridge Country…a place that’s run differently than anywhere else you’ve seen.

The radiation accident leading to the leak happened not long before the disastrous and unexpectedly sudden rise in sea level. So the government, in its infinite mercy, decided cleaning up the broken nuclear reactor was too much trouble. Instead, they put up giant walls all around the polluted area in the mountains, running pretty much the length of today’s Blue Ridge Parkway and including land 30 to 40 miles on either side. Most people, terrified of the still continuing radiation, got out. But a lot of them stayed. And they became the base population of Ridge Country.

The walls served one good purpose for Ridge Country. They might have kept the people inside hemmed in, but they also kept those fleeing from flooding oceans out. Where those coastal dwellers ended up, no one in Ridge really knows. But very few of them braved the radiation inside Ridge. It was left isolated. Alone. And different.

The people are different, the government is different, everything is changed.

What’s Not So Different in Ridge Country

Except that people still die. Yes, they do, sometimes from natural causes and accidents, sometimes from animal attacks, and sometimes with a little bit of help from other people.

Kylie Tyger was born and grew up in Ridge Country. And well, she’s an unusual person and has unusual talents in a lot of ways. She has a twin brother she’s crazy protective of. She’s got a missing-for-15-years older brother and sister she fears are long dead. And she’s got an agenda to find out who attacked her family 15 years ago, killing her parents and sending her down a dark path.

But, hey. She’s Kylie Tyger. She can do anything. She’s a fashionista to her toes, so as long as she has something cute and adorable to wear the other guys will never see her coming…