Hive

A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

By: Jason Baronette

Narrated by: Ash Aarrestad

It starts with a promise: perfect understanding.

The Tapestry connects minds, sharing thoughts, feelings, memories—instantly, beautifully.

Hailey Walker isn’t interested.

Happy to keep her small-town life private, she and her husband, Thomas, agreed: no implants, no Tethering, no surrendering their thoughts to anyone. Period. But as social pressure mounts and tragedies blamed on the Untethered spark riots, Thomas starts to crack—making a choice that shatters everything.

Alone in her own home, Hailey is haunted by the sense that the man she married—bonded to for life—might have just invited millions into their marriage. Worse yet, she may be carrying a child into a world that no longer allows outsiders.

As the Tethered tighten their grip, turning watchful and violent, Hailey must run for her life—risking everything to protect her unborn child and stay truly herself. Because in a world where connection is control, saying no is the most dangerous act of all.

HIVE is a chilling, high-stakes technothriller that explores how connection becomes control—and how a single betrayal can spark a desperate fight for survival. For fans of Edge of Collapse, Dark Matter, and The Stand.

©2025 Jason Baroneette (P)2025 Jason Baroneette

This story + narration was AMAZING!

I LOVED this story and the way the narrator brought it to life. I think there are real concerns with how society moves closer and closer to a “technocracy” and we need to think seriously about what implications come along with that. I applaud the author for tackling this topic and showcasing true humanity and the gift of life vs machine controlled humans functioning in society.

The narrator did such a great job of bringing out the personality differences and motivations driving each character, and she did an amazing job with differentiating between them all in dialogue and faster paced parts of the book.