Cedar Key Trilogy Book 3
Kirkus - Literary Titan - Florida Writers Association Award-Winning Series
Twenty-five years after the world ended, an army claiming to be from the American government just showed up at the bridge.
"The epic last chapter in a trilogy full of excitement, adventure, and heartbreak." - Kirkus Reviews
"Bobbitt writes Cedar Key like someone who knows the smell of salt air, old docks, porch talk, and stubborn people who would rather fix a thing badly than let an outsider tell them how to live." - Literary Titan
"In Michael Presley Bobbitt's third and final installment of the Cedar Key trilogy, The Republic of Cedar Key, he does exactly what he sets out to do-go out with a bang." - Independent Book Reviews
THE STORY
Cedar Key has survived twenty-five years without the outside world. Now the outside world wants back in.
The heroes of the early years - Hayes, Thomas, Rolf - are old men now. The island has rebuilt itself from memory and stubbornness. Then a Blackhawk helicopter drops out of the sky carrying soldiers who claim to represent what remains of the United States government. Mayor Luke Buck faces the defining question of his life: submit to a nation that abandoned them, or lead Cedar Key's resistance and stand alone. Part civic reckoning, part survival thriller, part elegy - the finale delivers the payoff readers of Books 1 and 2 have been building toward, while standing on its own as a complete story about identity, independence, and what a community owes itself.
"Full of battles, old grudges, civic rituals, and hard jokes - but underneath is a serious question: what happens when the symbols of a nation outlive the nation's moral authority?"
- Literary Titan, Five-Star Review
WHY THIS IS THE TRILOGY CLOSER READERS DESERVE
The stakes have never been higher - not a raid or a flood, but a full political reckoning. Twenty-five years of hard-won independence on the line.
Characters you've watched grow old - heroes from Book 1 are now elders whose weight and wisdom make every decision resonate.
Works as a standalone - new to Cedar Key? The backstory is woven in. Series readers get the full payoff they've earned.
Southern literary fiction with real stakes - funny, sharp, elegiac. A book that earns its ending.
PERFECT FOR FANS OF
Alas, Babylon - Station Eleven - Lonesome Dove - A Land Remembered - The Road
FROM READERS
"The voice has a storyteller's looseness - sometimes funny, sometimes sharp, sometimes almost elegiac. I felt the book at its best when it slowed down and let people talk, remember, and reveal what survival has cost them."
Literary Titan - 5/5 Stars
"In a world that keeps trying to fall apart, Cedar Key keeps choosing to hold on. Bobbitt just delivered the final word on it."
Surreal Florida
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Presley Bobbitt is an off-Broadway playwright, novelist, clam farmer, and Cedar Key's official Clambassador. He rode out Hurricanes Idalia and Helene on the island helping neighbors, gave a TEDTalk on the power of live theatre, and swam with sharks to raise money for Cedar Key School. He doesn't write about this place from a distance. He is this place.
THE CEDAR KEY TRILOGY - COMPLETE
Book 1: Godspeed, Cedar Key - Available now
Book 2: Forever, Cedar Key - Available now
Book 3: The Republic of Cedar Key - Available now