In the not too distant past, along the Mississippi River, North America tried to tear itself in half.

It failed. It won’t the second time.

New Madrid Earthquake is a stand-alone disaster thriller from international best-selling author Bobby Akart, one of America's favorite storytellers who has delivered up-all-night thrillers to readers and listeners in 245 countries and territories worldwide.

Two hundred years ago, several faults within the New Madrid seismic zone along the Mississippi River ruptured triggering some of the largest earthquakes in American history. The three massive quakes ripped open America's Heartland, shaking residents as far away as New York City and Washington, DC, while ringing church bells in Boston and Charleston, South Carolina.

Akart's stand-alone novel New Madrid Earthquake is based on actual events. It just hasn't happened yet, until now. Two hundred years later after the historic quake sequence of 1811-12, it's reawakened.

The New Madrid fault zone, six times larger than the San Andreas in California, has generated a series of massive earthquakes thrusting the Atwood and Chandler families in a fight to survive. Attorney Jack Atwood and his brother-in-law, Tony Chandler, are winding up their year-end tax-planning presentation atop The Met, a skyscraper in St. Louis, before returning to Memphis for their family's Christmas celebration. Jill Atwood, her daughter, Emily, and teenage son Tate are in a downtown Memphis performing-arts theater attending the dress rehearsal for Emily's Christmas pageant. Beth Chandler, 28 weeks pregnant, together with her three-year old autistic son, are traveling from Louisiana to join the rest of the family in Memphis.

Will they arrive for Christmas? Will they arrive at all? Their lives are about to change forever.

Prepare to be shaken.