Follow the Zombie Friday

Happy Follow Friday!

Q. In books like the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series the paranormal creature in question "comes out of the closet" and makes itself known to the world. Which mythical creature do you wish would come out of the closet, for real?

A. Well, zombies of course! Not the mindless kind. Nope. I like the sentient ones like myself. If only I could come out of the proverbial closet and shop at the grocery store like everyone else. Go and buy my makeup at the mall and not be afraid to munch on one of those rude drivers that cuts me off in traffic. The possibilities would be endless. How much fun it would be...

Thanks for dropping by on this wonderful Follow Friday! Don't forget to stop in at my sister site for two awesome contests.

http://danasyabookpile.blogspot.com/

http://crazy-for-books.com/2011/08/book-blogger-hop-826-829.html
A non book related question this week:

Q. Do you have pets?

A. Oh yes. Dogs. I rescue everything, so my furry babies are my life. My husband and I treat them like we would if we had kids. I also have four finches, a fish (Cranky Fish) and Godzilla the lizard.

My best and most wonderful baby is Taddy. He is the cutest thing ever...

Have a great weekend!

Contest for Lockdown on Dana's YA Bookpile

Greetings zombie horde! I bring you a contest today from our sister site, Dana's YA Bookpile. This a cool thriller about an underground prison for teen boys that had me thinking about James Dashner's Mazerunner when I read the description on Goodreads. The publisher is awesome and they have agreed to host a contest, so I wanted to pass the word. No zombies from what I can tell, but there are lots of things that go bump in the night, so that aught to still be right up your alley.

To check out the book trailer and enter the contest, click the link below:

http://danasyabookpile.blogspot.com/2011/08/lockdown-escape-from-furnace-by.html

Hope to see you there. There are all kinds of ways to win extra points. There is only one copy of the prize, so share, share, share. Tell your twitter peeps, Google Plus circles, Facebook friends, Goodreads peeps and whoever else you know that loves to read YA horror. This book looks great and I can't wait to get my hands on the review copy. 

Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them.

Sounds easy. Sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland –where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything…and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will make it out alive.

Goodreads

Thoughts...

This book, just like the first installment of Rot and Ruin, had me reading deep into the night. Benny, Nix, Tom, Chong and Lilia are characters I fell a little in love with and wanted desperately to know what happened to them. Many thanks to the awesome powers that be over at S&S for getting me a copy to review.

What I liked:

The story grabs you at the first page. Benny has grown up alot  and the snark just gets better and better. Gone is the whiny little kid brother that grudgingly followed Tom around in the first book. Benny is getting his chops and growing up. Leaving the town for the wilds of the Rot and Ruin has him scared to death, but if they want to find the mysterious plane, they have no choice.  As the story deepens, you get a really visceral view of just how depraved humanity can get under suvival circumnstances. Almost makes me glad I am a highly functioning zombie.

Jonathan Maberry has a great storyline here and he has brought out the darkest and most heroic parts of the human/zombie conflict.

What I Didn't.

Not a thing. Not gonna tell you  who dies, but someone in the travel party doesn't exactly make it out alive. That made me sad, but it will turn out to be an integral part of the next book. (There had better be a next book.)

Overall:

This book will be out at the end of August and I highly recommend it. If you haven't read Rot and Ruin, run out and get yourself a copy today. This book is great for boy or girl audiences. If you have someone who doesn't like to read, it will be a story to draw them in.

Yes, Dust and Decay  has 519 glorious pages, but they flew by so fast, I was in danger of losing a digit as the pages practically turned by themselves.

 

Working Stiff by Rachel Caine

A brand new adventure from the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling Rachel Caine, author of the Morganville Vampires and Weather Warden series ...

Bryn Davis is new on the job as a funeral director, but even she knows that once you’re dead, you ought to stay that way. But Fairview Mortuary has a hidden backroom business: reviving the dead for profit, at extortionate rates.

Finding out may cost Bryn more than her life ... it may just take away her death, too.

FORMERLY KNOWN AS "Dead Sexy".

Goodreads

What I liked:

Bryn is a strong character and I liked her clear headed mannerisms. Having her be someone who has just pulled a stint in the military was an interesting change and having her go into the funeral business was even more intriguing. On her first day, Bryn encounters all kinds of things at the mortuary. As someone who at one time considered this line of work, it is interesting to see what a typical day at a funeral home might consist of. The handling of clients, dealing with the body to make it viewable...lots of things to ponder. Caine does a great job at setting the scene and making you feel all the emotions that Bryn goes through while trying her best to succeed at her new job and help the clients in the best way she can.

The story was not what I was expecting. I liked the action (no spoilers guys, sorry) and the strong characters.

What I Didn't:

I was looking for a zombie book when I found this one and am still not so sure I got one. There were no brain munching moments, but there was some pretty horrific stuff in there that may make me like this series after all.

Overall:

Not being what I expected, I did like Bryn and her strength of character in a situation that could best be described as a waking nightmare.  The action and adventure of a spy thriller with the world at risk from a new drug that potentially can make everyone an undead addict was quite a new concept and I will be standing in line to download the next book in this series as soon as I can.

Fierce Follow Friday.

Great galloping ghosts! It's another Follow Friday!

I hope this week has you reading something cool and zombierific. Not sure if that is even an actual word, but no, I don't care. Zombies rock.

Q. If you could write yourself a part in a book, what book would it be and what role would you play in that book?

A. That is a tough one. There are so many books I love. Lately my thing has kind of been either zombies (duh) or dystopian.

I really loved Matched by Ally Condie. I loved the main character's slow realization that the world is not in nice little boxes and she has a choice whether or not to accept things as they are or fight for the boy she really loves. I would be Cassia and fight for the boy I loved. No matter the cost.

For another dose of dystopian, I think I would be Katniss in The Hunger Games. I would change the ending though. It would be feistier. There might even be a zombie apocalypse or something.









Zombies Love Follow Friday...

Happy Follow Friday!

May the screaming begin!

Or, at least some friendly waving...

www.parajunkee.com/

Q. How have your reading habits changed since you were a teen? or If you are still a teen what new genres are you in love with currently?

A. When I was a teen, I read more romance novels and vampire books than I do today. I still love both, but my tastes vary. I am more prone now to read YA before reading any other genre. Why? I think it is due in part to the YA genre being so diverse. I love the gritty books like Ellen Hopkins, the zombie books from Jonathan Maberry, the Morganville Vampire books from Rachel Caine and even some of the chick lit types. They are just more fun than some of the adult books I have read lately.

My newest love has to be zombie books, however. Just sayin.

http://crazy-for-books.com/2011/08/book-blogger-hop-812-815.html

“Let’s talk crazy book titles! Highlight one or two (or as many as you like!) titles in your personal collection that have the most interesting titles! If you can’t find any, feel free to find one on the internet!”

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He's what's known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant -- you know, the one who's always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male.

But Charlie's been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Francisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He's married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.

Yes, Charlie's doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie -- exhausted from the birth -- turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel's hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird. . . .

People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It's a dirty job. But hey, somebody's gotta do it.

Christopher Moore, the man whose Lamb served up Jesus' "missing years" (with the funny parts left in), and whose Fluke found the deep humor in whale researchers' lives, now shines his comic light on the undiscovered country we all eventually explore -- death and dying -- and the results are hilarious, heartwarming, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Goodreads

This is a riot of a book. The title is nothing to smirk at, but the book itself is a shriek fest of epic proportions.

The First Days by Rhiannon Frater

Rhiannon Frater's As the World Dies trilogy is an internet sensation. The first two books, The First Days and Fighting to Survive, have won the Dead Letter Award for Best Novel from Mail Order Zombie. The First Days was named one of the Best Zombie Books of the Decade by the Harrisburg Book Examiner. AmericanHorrorBlog calls Rhiannon Frater "a writer to watch."

The morning that the world ends, Katie is getting ready for court and housewife Jenni is taking care of her family. Less than two hours later, they are fleeing for their lives from a zombie horde.

Thrown together by circumstance, Jenni and Katie become a powerful zombie-killing partnership, mowing down zombies as they rescue Jenni's stepson, Jason, from an infected campground.

They find sanctuary in a tiny, roughly fortified Texas town. There Jenni and Katie find they are both attracted to Travis, leader of the survivors; and the refugees must slaughter people they know, who have returned in zombie form.

Fast-paced and exciting, filled with characters who grab your heart, The First Days: As the World Dies is the beginning of a frightening trilogy.

Thoughts...

What I liked:

I loved the female protagonists in this book. It isn't often that you find a zombie apocalypse book with two females as the lead characters. The flow of the story was very well done, as was the plot. The tension kept climbing and you just weren't sure what direction the story was going to go. Excellent.  I liked Katie and Jenni as characters and thought that Frater did a great job showing the stress and mixed emotions that can be felt during times of upheaval and crisis. The end of the world violence and turmoil was also well written. Nerit in particular was a fascinating character and I look forward to reading more about her.

Of course, I have to mention the zombies. Frater does a great job of describing the zombies and how they relate to the suvivors. I felt like I was there.

Jenni was another interesting case. Watching her husband kill her infant child and dealing with the aftermath of domestic violence in general was a great element to put in the story. A mother having to cope with the loss of most of her family as the zombies take over everything is a great plot element.

What I didn't:

While I usually have no problem with alternative lifestyle books, it works better when it just becomes part of the story and not a statement. I liked Katie as a character. She was my favorite character in the book actually,  but the Q&A session with Jenni's son Jason about what it meant to be lesbian or bi was a little more than I thought was needed. The story would have been great with Katie being whoever she was without all the baggage. She is a beautiful character and I am looking forward to the rest of her story.

Overall:

I enjoyed the story and dropped whatever I was doing to read more and find out what happened next. Finding out it was the first in a trilogy made me very happy, as I grew to love the characters and care what happens to them. Frater does an excellent job in showing the humanity in the characters she has created and also showing the depths of depravity that the human race can succumb to during tragedy. Tor has found a great series with these books and I thank the publicity department for sending me a copy for review.

Released on July 5, 2011 The First Days is the first of a trilogy written in small daily doses over Frater's website. She has won the Dead Letter Award for the novel twice and the series has been optioned for television.

4 1/2 out of 5