Book Blitz: Dead New World by Ryan Hill

Dead New World by Ryan Hill 

Published by: Curiosity Quills Press

Publication date: October 13th 2014

Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult, Zombies

Synopsis:

Zombies aren’t mindless anymore.

Before the world fell into chaos, the undead existed only in the imagination. Now, more of them walk the earth than living. Zombies move about freely, while humans entomb themselves inside concrete barricades to stay alive.

All that, while the leader of a powerful cult – known only as Reverend – becomes the next threat to the rebuilding United States. Believing zombies to be God’s latest creation, making humanity obsolete, he wants to give every man, woman, and child the chance to become one. With his combined army of humans and zombies, he may well get his wish.

Best friends Holt and Ambrose went up against the Reverend once. Holt lost a foot and a zombie bit Ambrose…though he survived the virus, only to become a human-zombie hybrid, reviled by the living and unwelcome among the dead. When the Reverend kidnaps the woman Holt loves, the race is on to save her from a fate worse than death.

Dead New World on Goodreads

Purchase:

Amazon.com

Excerpt:

“Thanks. For helping me with, you know,” I said in a hushed voice. The Lancasters, or Baker, for that matter, didn’t need to hear me thank my friend for saving my life. Again. “Been a while since one of them got within spitting distance of me, and that includes last night.”

“No problem,” Ambrose said. He kept his eyes on the terrain for potential threats.

“Why did it listen to you?”

Ambrose looked at me funny. “What are you talking about?”

Ray cast a suspicious look back at us. I managed not to laugh when he bumped into the corner of a car. Scowling, Ray faced forward, rubbing his leg.

“The zombie. It was trying to bite off my face when you yelled ‘no.’ It stopped and stared at you. Like it understood what you said.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Just like him, to play dumb.

“Probably because you were busy blowing its head off. But it did look at you. I know you can kind of sense when they’re around, but maybe there’s more to it than that.”

“You saying I can talk to them? Ask them what they like to do when they’re not trying to eat people’s brains? That’s stupid.”

Was it, though?

“I mean, maybe you can control them or something, like the Reverend.” I kicked a piece of burnt metal off the road. “I don’t know. That kid did say you were one of the chosen ones. And, if you can, that could be useful.”

“Shut up. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” I said in a snarky tone, and I mock-saluted. If he didn’t want to talk about it, fine. Two could play that game.

Author Bio:

Growing up, Ryan Hill used to spend his time reading and writing instead of doing homework. This resulted in an obsession with becoming a writer, but also a gross incompetence in the fields of science and mathematics. A graduate of North Carolina State University, Ryan has been a film critic for over five years. He lives in Raleigh, NC, with his dog/shadow Maggie. Ryan also feels strange about referring to himself in the third person.

Author Links:

https://twitter.com/J_Ryan

http://www.ryanhillwrites.com/

https://twitter.com/J_Ryan

https://www.facebook.com/ryanhillwrites

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5804086.Ryan_Hill

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Review: The Walking Dead - Season One

I hadn't heard much about The Walking Dead until a few weeks ago when I was bought seasons 1-3 for my birthday (Thank you!). All I knew was that it was about zombies, so naturally I thought it would be about surviving a post-apocalyptic zombie world. It is about that, but it's also so much more.

The Walking Dead centres around Rick Grimes, a police officer who has awoken in hospital after being shot only to find that the world as he knew it is gone. It is now overrun with zombies, otherwise known as Walkers. The first season focuses on his attempts to find his family and take them to a safe place. It is based on a graphic novel series of the same name.

At first I did think it was going to be another 28 Days Later. It had the same set-up, with the protagonist waking up in a hospital to find the world has succumbed to zombies. However with this being a TV series, it has the time to be much more in-depth than 28 Days Later, so I gave it more of a chance.

Another massive difference is that The Walking Dead is American. At first, I just could not get my head around the accents. Especially Shane's. It's just such a thick Southern American accent that I found it difficult to understand, but I am now used to it, though sometimes I still have to think about what he just said. I was amazed to find out that Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes, is British. I would never have guessed. Then I saw his film credits, and that he was in Love Actually and I knew exactly who he was, admittedly because I didn't see how Keira Knightley could possibly reject him. So I think that shows that he's pretty darn versatile.


I'm also quite sure it's been more than 28 days after Rick Grimes was shot. One rather intriguing thing about The Walking Dead is that it doesn't tell you how long it has been since the outbreak, and doesn't tell you how these people became zombies. I presume that's because eventually we will get to know this through the use of flashbacks and clues throughout the seasons, and I personally can't wait.

The characters are well developed, and you can see why they do the things they do, even if it isn't for the best of reasons. Although I think Rick Grimes is great, has an awesome name and a fantastic moral compass, my favourite character is Daryl. He is basically kick-ass. I think the only things you need to know about him is that he is awesome with a crossbow and quite impulsive but is multi-faceted too. There are quite a few characters, but they are all developed properly and allow you to have insight into what it would be like for them during zombie attacks and in the aftermath of them. Saying this, I am quite surprised nobody has gone mad yet.

There are a few characters I don't like. This is mostly because they're a bit annoying or just plain stupid, but this is a series where anyone could be killed off at any moment, so I'm holding out hope.

Themes of survival, love, betrayal, loss and moral conscience make this series more than just your average zombie-filled offering. It also has the standard gory zombie scenes you would, and definitely should expect.

The Walking Dead is, in essence, everything I could ever ask for. Its got heart (figuratively and literally), guts, gore and great character development and I very much look forward to watching the other seasons.

I'm giving it 8 out of 10. It loses some points because of the few annoying characters and because I know I'm going to have to wait a while for story-lines to be completed and things to be explained. That said, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.

Cover Reveal: Fractured - Erin Hayes

Zombies on holiday, the supernatural, mysterious seizures and twins... these are all the ingredients to make a really interesting, really creepy book. I love the sound of it, and I also love the cover:

Fractured by Erin Hayes
Publication date: July 8th 2014
Genres: Adult, Horror

Synopsis:

Blinded by a mysterious seizure when she was three years old, Bash Martin has managed to carve out a normal life for herself as an adult. Yet she still yearns for a deeper connection with her twin sister Lily, who has always been jealous of the attention their parents bestowed upon Bash due to her disability.

A dream vacation seems like the perfect chance to heal their relationship, but Bash soon realizes there is something terribly wrong with Lily and that her sister is hiding a dark secret. And when a supernatural fire engulfs their hotel and corpses come back to life, the sisters are plunged into a nightmarish world that threatens not only their lives, but their very souls.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21865341-fractured?ac=1

Sci-fi junkie, video game nerd, and wannabe manga artist, Erin Hayes writes a lot of things. Sometimes she writes books, like the fantasy mystery Death is but a Dream and the sci-fi middle grade book Jacob Smith is Incredibly Average.

You can reach her at tiptoegirl87@gmail.com and she'll be happy to chat. Especially if you want to debate Star Wars.

Author links:

Website: http://erinsalterego.blogspot.ca/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5335865.Erin_Hayes

Twitter: https://twitter.com/erinhayes5399

Graveminder - Melissa Marr

Rebekkah Barrow didn't ever plan to come back to Claysville, but then again, neither did Byron Montgomery, and yet the town has called both of them back for a very specific purpose.

Maylene Barrow is dead, murdered by a girl who should have been in the ground; dead, buried and minded. The mystery, however, runs even deeper than that, and even though Rebekkah is grieving, she soon finds that there are more pressing matters to deal with. She is forced to come to terms with the death that haunts her to this day, to her own faults, and to her new identity as the Graveminder; a job she never knew existed.

Graveminder is a brilliant, slightly romantic take on the old classic horror of a zombie, but this time it has been taken and twisted into a tiny microcosm, where everything relies on two people, our protagonists. Clare has created a tiny world, complete with various subplots that tie in superbly at the end. The entire plot has layers on top of layers, which peel slowly back throughout the book to reveal more about the job of the Graveminder, how it came to be and why it has been given to Rebekkah.

This is very much a dual-protagonist book (if that's even the right way of saying it.. but you get the jist, right?). The Graveminder is nothing without her Undertaker, and so we see the emotional journey of both Byron and Rebekkah in this book in equal measure. This is great as we get a much clearer picture of what exactly is going on, given that we can switch to the view of both of these characters, instead of having to be told it as in a singularly first-person narrative.

The only issue with this book was the romance. For some, this is a really nice touch and people tend to appreciate the main characters having some kind of romantic entanglement, especially in a book that is aimed at teenagers. However, for me the romance didn't completely work. Rebekkah's feelings didn't quite ring true nearer the end of the book, and Byron's constant talking over the same things bored me to tears, the same way Rebekkah's tendency not to address any aspect of reality did. However, I can't say that I've been in her situation, so it really isn't my place to say what any normal person would have done in her place.

In the end, the story came to a very good conclusion, and I fully enjoyed the mystery in the story, which was hinted at, and I never really guessed right until half a page before I was told. Perfect timing. A quick, exciting and fairly powerful read that really gets you to think about the afterlife, but not in a bad way.

8 out of ten.

Every Other Day - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

In Kali's world monsters, or the preternatural, were discovered when Darwin took his trip on the Beagle to the Galapagos Islands. But instead of finding finches and turtles, he found impossible creatures that we had only ever heard about in myth and legend. Some of them are even classified as endangered species, but every other day, Kali sees them as her prey. Every other day, Kali turns from a human into something else; something fast, that heals quickly, that feels no pain, that hungers for the hunt and for the death of preternatural beings, because of this, Kali has never had any friends.. Until one day she saves a girl from a bloodsucking parasite and actually speaks to someone at her school. Action, friendship, psychic abilities and a good splash of conspiracy theory all play together to create a compelling and quite original story.

The idea is the key to how this book works so well. The amalgamation of all the creatures that have ever terrified you, all put into one world and with seemingly one person to protect the humans from them. It is a really great concept, and certainly not one that has been thought of before. Yes, a few may have Kali has no idea what she is and why she feels the need to hunt the 'things that go bump in the night', and so the entire story has undercurrents of this persistent question which brings huge revelations in the latter stages. In the meantime, the main action is in battling preternatural things and trying not to get killed. It all culminate with one whopping twist. You can kind of see it coming, but not until a few minutes before it happens.

Character-wise, I thought Kali was a wonderful voice, with just the right amount of sarcasm and abnormality that you immediately warm to her. The book is in first person, so you truly get the sense of who she is as a person as well as the deep sense of loneliness that she has at the beginning. However, it was actually her new friends, Skylar and Bethany, who I liked the most; Skylar for her absolute vivacity and bravery, and Bethany for everything she ever says - if you want a sarky / snarky comment, she's your girl.

A surprising and captivating read, if only it was longer and better developed. But this may be because it was meant for teens rather than adults. I am really hoping for a second book that delves more into the world and the other preternatural creatures. 8 out of 10.

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion

The film has been plastered everywhere, but how does the book compare? That's where I come in.

So for those of you who aren't that into YA fiction, or Zomromcoms, or Nicholas Hoult (who was great, by the way), Warm Bodies is Romeo and Juliet with a twist. Ever wondered what it would be like if Romeo was already dead and Juliet was the daughter of the human leader? Well, wonder no more.

The book opens nicely, with a nice description of how the zombies live, how they act, and why R (that's our Romeo) is a little different to the rest of them. Kind of like the film, but in a slightly less amusing way, we are put directly into R's mind. The first person narrative from his point of view is lovely. His thoughts and descriptions are vivid and produce wonderful images for us. The reason for his lack of words as a zombie is also nicely explained.

As always, there is more to the book than there is to the film, but here we see this in a very different way. R has a little zombie family, and the rest of the zombies are not quite as gormless and unthinking as the film suggests. They have classes for the children (macabre ones, but still, classes) and even (loosely speaking) a church. Thankfully, the Boneys were not made up, but there is a little more to them too. They are almost otherworldly beings with a faint, menacing hum emanating from them.

So, anyway, on with the book. The plot is good, it never stutters and never stops. It keeps you reading on, wondering what is going to happen. The relationship between R and Julie is not quite as obvious as it could be. I like that, as it does keep you guessing. Perry (Julie's boyfriend, who is killed by R at the start), keeps making appearances that are really interesting to read and give you more to think about. In fact, this book really makes you wonder about what happens when you die. It leaves you with philosophical questions about what happens to your soul if you were to become a zombie, or a Boney. Even the most high-brow of adults can get a kick out of this YA book.

I do feel that the ending was quite predictable in terms of what happens to R. Even the names of the parts in the book do their best in giving it away. However, it is a drastic change from the film. I don't want to give too much away, but in a way, it was a slight let-down for me about what happens to the Boneys. The climax was there, and someone dies who doesn't in the film (this part is actually really cool) but then it all kind of peters out.

Discard your preconceptions of zombies, folks. This a good read and really makes you think. Read this first, then see the film.

Three stars I'm afraid. The film just flowed better for me.

The prequel, The New Hunger, is out on Kindle now.