Zombies, cults, and a desperate search for a cure…two friends must test the limits of their relationship in this action-packed apocalyptic romance where secrets are the key to survival.
The US government has been keeping a secret… During the Vietnam War, they created zombies, and if the undead ever escaped, they created a backup plan.
Code Z.
A last-ditch contingency for if their ill-advised creation should ever cause an outbreak. Unfortunately, the day has come for that plan to be enacted. Navy SEALs Malcolm White and Zack Morris are on a mission to rescue the Governor of Virginia from the spreading zombie invasion when they learn that Malcolm’s friend Anne Yamaguchi, and Zack’s wife Kelsey, are stuck in a mall in the midst of a zombie attack. Abandoning the mission, Malcolm and Zack rush to save them and bring them to the safety of the Little Creek Naval Base. However, they discover that only those who are married to a member of the military are allowed to find sanctuary on the base. That is when a plan is devised, Anne and Malcolm pretend to be married, to protect her from the worst of the plague. Soon Anne and Malcolm discover this plan creates more problems than it solves. Not only will the couple find themselves struggling to uphold the ruse, while also evading zombies and vengeful demonic cults, they will find that living a lie changes their growing feelings for each other. Feelings that could have the potential to ruin their friendship forever. This fast-paced apocalyptic romance will leave you turning pages late into the night as stakes rise and friendships are tested. Will a cure be found? Or will the world fall to a monster of its own making?
TW: This book contains mature scenes, gore, sexual assault, and elements of horror
“A modern-day Zombie novel is only the beginning of this unique take on an old favorite. Following the characters as they try to survive, not only against the undead but against man’s brutality. I enjoyed this story from start to finish and was rooting for the characters throughout. Some heart-stopping moments, which meant I struggled to put the book down.”
Remy Marie is a romance author who loves to write about charming heroes and brave heroines. While writing never came naturally for Remy, he continued to strengthen his craft, by constantly reading and writing. If he is not writing or reading, he is usually watching TV with his supportive wife, aggressively cheering for his college and professional sports teams, playing video games, or crunching numbers at his daytime job.
There are three main characters in this book. Jewell who holds the prophecy to chart us on a new course and bring hope to the world. Ben (her father) who has been her protector. And Jamie (who with the help of those he recruited implemented a plan to be put in place after Jewell had torn down the walls between the rich and poor.
Synopsis:
Dawn Rises the sequel to The Divide Series brings us hope after fifteen years of despair. When all rights were taken away from women, children, and anyone who was not rich and white. The suburbs and small towns destroyed, the rich walled themselves into the upper town with clean water, electricity, heat, domes that kept the city air clean, and pushed everyone else into the lower towns to live in tenements designed to house multiple families, though women were no longer allowed out of the house or even to meet, and men of different races no longer mixed.
But all had the same fate, at six the boys were all taken away to apprentice, and at fifteen into the military. If they survived fifteen years in the military most were given a wife and a job in the company owned factories.
But a prophecy was to be fulfilled according to Rebecca’s words as she died for to give them a chance, that a girl child would be born who would be able to draw in the magic that would free the world.
How and what happens is in Dawn Rises the sequel to this dystopian series. It might be a future we face. It is a cautionary tale.
Brief Excerpt:
Turning to the crowd she said. “Fifteen years ago, I stood before many of you and made a prophecy. Today that prophecy has come true. My daughter Jewell has brought us all with her into the between times and opened the door for us to build a new world.
When women were made breeding animals, books were burned, and all but the rich were denied education. Sent to labor in sweat shops, shipped off to fight in yet another war. The poor separated from each other and kept poor and uneducated; it was then our society died.
But we can and will build a new and better one together and the true American dream will spread across the land and the world.”
Why should readers buy this book (50 words max)?
It is a ray of hope in darkness that has and may yet still be coming, and a prophecy to be fulfilled.
Cover Art (add as attachment please)
Links etc.
https://tinyurl.com/bd5uyzry (it’s on pre-order till 10/1 after that it will go to paperback, audio and other sites.
The whine of the chainsaws, and the rumble of iron machines cut through the growing sound from the forest. Death came on tracks of metal and wheels of rubber. The monkeys who commanded the machines waited, smoking and pointing towards the edges of the forest. “Where do we start?” one asked, eyeing the trees.
“Make your way to that big old one – the tallest. That will take out plenty when it falls. Look it’s three-quarters rotten anyway! Break the heart of the forest and tame it! That is how it’s done, lad.” The speaker pointed towards the Great Oak, satisfaction creased his face, and power gave his countenance a smirk. The monkey who walked on two feet was lord of the land and knew it well. He had brought death to the flora and fauna of this land, and their sap and blood soaked the soil. And he ignored the cacophony of music around him.
“This is the last patch of woodland in the country, the only unspoiled wilderness left,” someone said, from the back. “Must we?”
“It’s coming down. It’s needed for houses – people are more important than trees. They are just plants.” The foreman glared at the speaker, as the wind began to blow around them. “It’s not the last, there’s that coppice over in Haydock, and the Amazon of course.”
“The Amazon went a decade ago, boss. And that place in Haydock was bulldozed last year.” The first speaker reminded him.
The boss shrugged. “Not my problem. We have our orders. Now get to it, there is no place for conscience or sentiment here.”
The machines snarled, they spat their poison breath and rumbled forward, inexorable, awful. Monsters of modernity, some had called them. Progress had been their name from others. All the trees understood was the choking stench and the inexorable roar of impending death. Trees are not complicated, but they are not stupid. The knowledge of the wood pulsed through every branch and root; the force of nature, the will of life to survive surged.
Crack! The sound of tons of wood uprooting drowned the roar of the engines. It was the sound of defiance. Earth showered from roots, and leaves swirled as the mighty trees moved. Nature stopped; from red fox, and blackbird to tiny grey mouse life paused – the cry of war flowed through the ground, squeaked from the lowliest and sung from above. ‘We come! We stand! We fight! Nature Rises!’
Birds swooped, squawking at the monkeys who walked on two feet. Beaks were sharp, and eyeballs soft. The brave robin and the humble thrush dived, their song the sound of battle as they flew towards danger. ‘Be gone! Be gone!’
The humans flapped their arms against the onslaught.
“Get away, filthy creatures!” one monkey yelled. “I hate birds!” His flapping arms knocked birds to the ground, and some rose up for another onslaught. Others lay broken but roused the song to inspire their comrades.
“What is this? Alfred Hitchcock been ‘ere?” The foreman cried, trying to bat away the crows, pecking at his face. Blood flowed, feathers flew, and the beat of the Primal Song changed again – the music surged as other creatures joined the fray.
Orphaned and disillusioned about her career, Diana Gutierrez-Adams is on a routine military assignment when she and her team are kidnapped by a domestic militia. She learns from her captors that her cryogenically-frozen grandfather is at the center of a high-stakes caper to steal technology for greed and great fortune. Challenged by the conspiracy and pulled by emotions she doesn’t fully understand, Diana begins a rescue mission that will change her life.
Set in 2049 America — a world where the elites make all the rules and artificial intelligence enforces them – the real danger is that the technology will be lost in the ensuing chaos. With her life under threat, Diana is forced into a desperate bid to escape, taking with her Gabrielle, her soulmate and the one person she knows she can trust.
To evade a devious enemy who is one step ahead of them at every turn, Diana and Gabrielle must outsmart the global monitoring systems that tracks their every move. On a trail littered with the dystopian remains of middle-class America, they will come face-to-face with an artificial intelligence that threatens the future of all humankind.
What happens to her is unexpected, perhaps miraculous – an adventure that embraces all her hopes for finding her true self and her place in a world dominated by powerful elites and even more powerful artificial intelligence.
A Brooklyn-born, second generation American and the eldest of three boys, writing is his third career and the one about which he is most passionate. Following graduation from the US Naval Academy and active duty in the Navy, he embarked on a career in business. He began writing his blog “Who Will Lead?” in 2010 attracting over 120,000 readers. It inspired him to write his first book, an Amazon five-star rated business fable titled “The Reluctant CEO.” Currently he makes his home in Fairport, NY, a village on the Erie Canal.
Fail the tests and become a slave. Display defectiveness and be put to death.
Monroe Academy was built to separate the weak from the strong. Pass the biyearly leveling and be released into society upon graduation. Fail to be promoted and be stripped of rank and forced into servitude. That was a rule that applied to all but Rayah Bardeau. A student of Monroe Academy, branded as a Null because of her absence of Lighter energy.
With her mother standing as a slave in her place, Rayah was given until the age of twenty to make level six, but at nineteen-years-old and with only eight months until her twentieth birthday, she was only a mere level one. The same level she’s been since she was ten. With the stress of her upcoming test, the loss of a friend, and the constant wrongdoings towards her, Rayah could only dream of escaping from Lytonia, and escape she did. Only, when she awakened in her dorm, she couldn’t distinguish if she had only dreamt of meeting Soren, a wild and adventurous defect in the Wild Lands, or if she had somehow used her Lighter Form to get there.
But only the elite ― the most powerful of Lighters ― could tap into their Lighter Forms. Right? And what was the dark energy she used when she and Soren were attacked by Depleters? Was Rayah really as powerless as she thought? Was she a defect? And if she used dark energy, could she call herself a Lighter at all?
Bestselling author Destiny Hawkins brings you the first installment of a gripping dark fantasy where a powerless girl must survive in a society that doesn’t accept the weak…or the defective.
Content Advisory: The following book contains vivid depictions of violence and death. Reader discretion is advised.
She was given a second chance to prove that she could fall in line, but with her lack of power, that would be impossible.
Rayah’s entire life, she’d always been different from everyone else, and in Lytonia, being different was treated as a crime, but in her case, she was granted a pass. In only a few months, she had to present her abilities to the council and prove to them that she was worthy of walking the halls of Monroe Academy, but Artemis, her tormentor and superior officer, would stop at nothing to keep her from excelling. Being powerless and not proving herself meant that she would be transitioned into a slave, and Artemis would become her master. What Rayah realized was that she wasn’t as powerless as she thought. For weeks she had been able to do things that only the elite lighters could do, and even though this meant that she was strong, it made her more different than she could have ever imagined. Rayah went from being weak to possibly being as strong as a Gods Daughter, and she couldn’t tell anyone. The standard colors of a Lytonians powers are white, royal blue, and turquoise blue. Hers were black…
Bestselling author Destiny Hawkins brings you the second installment of a gripping dark fantasy where a powerless girl must survive in a society that doesn’t accept the weak…or the defective.
Destiny Hawkins is a multi-genre author with a dark imagination and a love for magic.
She enjoys working on her graphic designing business : Vibrant Designs LLC, writing, listening to music, reading, and of course watching some anime! Her favorite genres to read and work in are Fantasy, LGBT, Paranormal, Romance, Dystopian, Sci-fi, and young adult.
Destiny loves creating stories and building worlds that both teach and entertain! When writing she sticks to her slogan: Where beauty can be found in darkness.
Get ready for The Unbroken, Book Three of The Descendants Series!
What attracts you to the genre in which you write? I typically write thrillers, but I also have a Sci-Fi and a Young Adult series coming out this year so I like to think I write whatever moves me at the moment. That being said, all my books have some thriller elements to them because the stakes are always raised and for me they are the most engaging to read.
What piece of writing advice do you wish you’d known when you started your writing adventures?
Not to get too bogged down by rejection. Rejection is necessary, all writers experience it, and it only makes you a better writer. I got too caught up in it early on when it was really the best thing that could’ve happened to me.
If you could have dinner with any famous person or character who would you choose?
Probably F. Scott Fitzgerald. He’s always been my favorite writer and even though a dinner with him would be impossible now, if I could raise him from the dead for the meal, I choose him and we could just talk about The Great Gatsby the whole time and how it’s a perfect book.
Who has been the greatest influence on your own work?
Probably David Lynch. I remember watching Twin Peaks as kid and it defied what I knew stories could do. There’s an ominous foreboding to his work where anything can happen, and I try to use that for all of my books too.
Do you think the e-book revolution will do away with print?
No. They can exist side by side. There might be less print books but people will always want to own physical copies. An e-book just isn’t the same. That being said, I probably sell more e-books than print, so I’m glad it exists.
Which 3 books would you take to a desert island and why?
Great Gatsby for the reasons I said before.
The Beach because it’s a fantastic thriller kind of about a desert island.
Catcher in The Rye – It may be cliché, but it’s one of my favorite novels and I’ve reread it ever few years since I was twelve. Each time I discover new things about it.
Author bio and book synopsis
Please introduce yourself (250 words or so):
Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE ANCESTOR, THE MENTOR, THE DESIRE CARD and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the Prix du Polar. His first YA series RUNAWAY TRAIN is forthcoming in 2021 along with a sci-fi novel ORANGE CITY. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, Necessary Fiction, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City. Follow him at LeeMatthewGoldberg.com
Tell us about your book(s) – title, genre etc (short)
Imagine a secret, hidden City that gives a second chance at life for those selected to come: felons, deformed outcasts, those on the fringe of the Outside World. Everyone gets a job, a place to live; but you are bound to the City forever. You can never leave.
Its citizens are ruled by a monstrous figure called the “Man” who resembles a giant demented spider from the lifelike robotic limbs attached to his body. Everyone follows the Man blindly, working hard to make their Promised Land stronger, too scared to defy him and be discarded to the Empty Zones.
After ten years as an advertising executive, Graham Weatherend receives an order to test a new client, Pow! Sodas. After one sip of the orange flavor, he becomes addicted, the sodas causing wild mood swings that finally wake him up to the prison he calls reality.
A dynamic mash-up of 1984 meets LOST, Orange City is a lurid, dystopian first book in a series that will continue with the explosive sequel Lemonworld.
They told me I was an out-of-control train about to crash…
Everything changed when the police officer knocked on the door to tell me – a 16-year-old – that my older sister Kristen had died of a brain aneurysm. Cue the start of my parents neglecting me and my whole life spiraling out of control.
I decided now was the perfect time to skip town. It’s the early 90’s, Kurt Cobain runs the grunge music scene and I just experienced some serious trauma. What’s a girl supposed to do? I didn’t want to end up like Kristen, so I grabbed my bucket list, turned up my mixtape of the greatest 90’s hits and fled L.A.. The goal was to end up at Kurt Cobain’s house in Seattle, but I never could have guessed what would happen along the way.
At turns heartbreaking, inspiring, and laugh out loud funny, Runaway Train is a wild journey of a bygone era and a portrait of a one-of-a-kind teenage girl trying to find herself again the only way she knows how.
Tell us about yourself: (Name, race/species, etc.)
Graham Weatherend/White/Human
I’m an adventurer – why should I recruit you to accompany me?
Well, I may come off as meek but I started an uprising in the City I was sent to when I learned the terrible things they were doing to their citizens, so I’ve become an adventurer. I can show you the way…now.
Tell us about your companions? How do they see you?
My companions are Marlena and Mick. Marlena is my girlfriend. We’ve been through a lot, mostly because of the soda addictions from my ad campaign, but we’ve weathered that storm. Mick is a former friend who sold me out. He used to think of me as spineless, but now he sees how powerful I can be when I put my mind to something.
What’s your most heroic exploit to date?
Rebelling against The Man and the City that kept us under its thumb. After ten years of oppression, it was time.
What’s your greatest failure?
Probably the way I treated Marlena when my addictions got the better of me. It hurts me to know that I had the ability to behave in the way I did.
Where do you think you’ll be in a decade?
Right now, I’m off to return to the Outside World. It has been ten years so I don’t know what it will be like but I can’t imagine it will be worse than the City. Hopefully I will still be with Marlena and we’ll have children and I hope, happiness. We deserve it after so long.
Do you have a great love?
Again, Marlena. She’s the reason I started an uprising against the City. She’s the reason I do everything and have become a better man.
Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter’? I’m definitely a ‘pantser’
What piece of advice do you wish you’d had when you started your publishing journey? Don’t give up, self-publishing is an option if no literary agents want you.
What are your views on authors offering free books? Do you believe, as some do, that it demeans an author and his or her work? To each their own to be honest. I don’t think it demeans an author’s work, I find this can entice somebody to actually purchase a book and some do see it as a marketing magnet.
How do you deal with bad reviews? It depends on the review’s content. If it is a critical review that can help me grow as a writer, I will take those comments on board and implement them into future work. However, if it doesn’t help me as an author I ignore it.
How much research do you do for your work? What’s the wildest subject you’ve looked at? I do a lot of research for my books, it takes a huge majority of my time. The wildest subject I’ve looked at is how much weight a bird’s nest can hold before it breaks, turns out not that much.
What’s the best advice you’ve received about writing/publishing? Just write. Ignore it if it’s bad you’ll clean it up later.
What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve received about writing/publishing? Don’t pay for an editor.
Tell us about your latest piece? My debut novel LISTED is a New Adult Dystopian novel about Judas Wells defying his country’s ruthless regime to rescue Nadine Ellis from her execution. This leads them both into a desperate situation and a fight for their survival.
What’s your next writing adventure? My next writing adventure is LISTED’s sequel REBOUND. Following on from the events of book one, my main characters are finding the past repeating itself but with a much more sinister twist.
With the influx of indie authors do you think this is the future of storytelling? Definitely, especially with the recent loss of publishing houses making competition in the traditional world even more difficult. Hopefully in the future we can see more indie authors in bookstores.
Are indie/self published authors viewed with scepticism or wariness by readers? Why is this? Yes self/published authors are viewed with a lot of skepticism and I think that is because of the stereotype that we publish poor-quality books that are either cheesy, and riddled with errors. I know there is a large majority of the poor-quality work in the self-publishing world but there are some self-published works which challenge traditional publishing.
Is there a message in your books? There is light in a dark time
L.J. Kerry was born and raised in Sheffield, England. She has always loved to read and write from a young age, some of her favourite genres are Urban Fantasy and Dystopia.
Now living in Derbyshire, England. L.J. Kerry likes to spend her free time (aside from reading or writing) playing video games, travelling and learning new languages/cultures.
Main character description (short): Like all badass heroines, Lauren projects sass and grit to cover past hurts. She’s trained as an elite assassin and takes pleasure in the lives she ends to better her world. Then she ends up in 1920s Hollywood, and her purpose shifts from hit jobs to caring for and protecting others, ironically, from gangsters who were idolized in her dystopian world.
Synopsis:Lauren Ramirez, an Assassin 13, which means she’s the best at her profession, is betrayed by her employer, the President of the United States, when she takes a high-rank target job to get information on her mother’s killer. While she’s attempting to escape in a space shuttle from his trap, she hurtles through a time displacement anomaly and lands in the glam of 1927 Hollywood.
Lauren finds herself working for one of Hollywood’s top actresses, Pauline Windsor, who is dating mafia member Benny Sorrentino. He is caught up in a gangland war with the Colombini brothers for the city’s profitable bootlegging and gambling rings. Even as she clings to the revenge for her mother’s death and somehow fixing her broken shuttle to return for the information, Lauren’s relationship with the people she meets, stunt pilot Remy Garnett, Pauline, and Pauline’s children, all begin to change the hard surface of her heart.
When Pauline’s relationship with Sorrentino draws her and her family into the gangland war, Lauren must decide whether to use her 22nd century talents and technology in their defense or abandon them to slip back into her time and get the information she needs to avenge her mother.
Brief Excerpt 250 words:
A malignant aura emanated from him that only Lauren could see. The Pelosi brothers flanked him like two cobras.
When he walks, he brings menace like the night, Matt said quoting some long forgotten future movie.
Leaning down, Sorrentino kissed Pauline quickly on the lips. “Hey, doll.”
Doll? That’s a bit cliché, isn’t it? Matt said. Is he going to stick a grapefruit in her face now?
Focused on the gangsters, she didn’t answer.
Pauline’s eyes lit up, then worry crossed her face. “Ben, are you all right?”
He waved her concern away, “Hardly more than a scratch. I’m fine.” He glanced at Lauren with raised eyebrows. A dark look came into his eyes. “I remember you, toots.”
“Ben, this is Lauren Ramirez. She manages my business affairs. She was at the dinner party.”
“Yeah, good to see you again.” Sorrentino reached for Lauren’s hand, but she kept both under the tablet. Frowning, he retracted his, and locked eyes on her. “Business manager? Then you’re just the person should be here with what I got for Pauline. Miss Ramirez, or is it Mrs.?”
“Benny the Bug,” Lauren said. “How did you get a name like that?”
He stiffened. His features grew dark.
Pauline glared at her. The room had been silently watching. Now, tension floated through like static electricity among gasoline barrels.
Lauren’s hand went theatrically to her chest in a picture of innocence. “I hope I didn’t offend you, Mr. Sorrentino. I meant no harm. Benny the Bug? That is your name, isn’t it.”
“What the hell’s with you?” His voice, low and cold, sounded like gravel being stomped.
Why should readers buy this book (50 words max)? Buy this book because it is a fun read. It is entertainment pure and simple. I write books I would want to read. It is heart-pounding, thriller action, so I’m told, with a little romance and strong emotions. I hope people will feel those when they read it.
Author bio:
Tom Reppert is an army veteran with a BA in English and History, as well as MAs in Creative Writing and Professional Writing. He spent twelve years in Africa and Asia teaching English Literature and Composition. An award-winning author, his writing includes educational essays, short stories, and novels Past Murders, The Far Journey, and The Captured Girl. Tom lives in Sandpoint, Idaho on idyllic Lake Pend Oreille, where he is currently working on his next novel, one set both in the future and the past.
Goodreads
Book: ASSASSIN 13
Category/ Genre: Adult Science Fiction
Teaser: Assassin 13 is a time travel thriller set in a dystopian future and 1927 Hollywood.
Lauren Ramirez, an Assassin 13, which means she’s the best at her profession, is betrayed by her employer, the President of the United States, when she takes a high-rank target job to get information on her mother’s killer. While she’s attempting to escape in a space shuttle from his trap, she hurtles through a time displacement anomaly and lands in the glam of 1927 Hollywood.
Lauren finds herself working for one of Hollywood’s top actresses, Pauline Windsor, who is dating mafia member Benny Sorrentino. He is caught up in a gangland war with the Colombini brothers for the city’s profitable bootlegging and gambling rings. Even as she clings to the revenge for her mother’s death and somehow fixing her broken shuttle to return for the information, Lauren’s relationship with the people she meets, stunt pilot Remy Garnett, Pauline, and Pauline’s children, all begin to change the hard surface of her heart.
When Pauline’s relationship with Sorrentino draws her and her family into the gangland war, Lauren must decide whether to use her 22nd-century talents and technology in their defense or abandon them to slip back into her time and get the information she needs to avenge her mother.
Blogs Participating in the Blog Tour (with more chances to win a free hard-copy of ASSASSIN 13!)
The Tattooed Book Geek
The Faerie Review
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OD Book Reviews
The Reading Nook
Thrice Read Books
Library of Erana
Navigating Worlds
EG Moore Freelance and Fiction
Rebecca Waddell
Kirkus Review: “Characters are dynamic, especially headstrong Pauline, but Matt is a real surprise; he adds comic relief and Hollywood trivia to keep Lauren informed, even if she occasionally threatens to scrub the opinionated AI from her neurobots. The old Hollywood backdrop imbues the story with authenticity, including the name-dropping of classic film stars and the impending introduction of movie sound, a possible detriment to the current silent-era actors. Reppert wisely simplifies the time traveling, with its explanation decidedly less important than rich character development. Regardless, the oddly practical ending should appease fans of the subgenre. A striking tale flaunting a strong protagoni
Library of Erana 