Book Tour: THE GIRL'S GUIDE TO THE APOCALYPSE by Daphne Lamb

The Girl’s Guide to the Apocalypse by Daphne Lamb
Published by: Booktrope Publishing
Publication date: August 11th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Post-Apocalyptic

Synopsis:

Welcome to the Apocalypse. Your forecast includes acid rain, roving gangs and misplaced priorities, in this comedic take on the end of the world as we know it, from debut author Daphne Lamb. As a self-entitled, self-involved, and ill equipped millennial, Verdell probably wouldn’t have ranked very high on the list of those most likely to survive the end of the world, but here she is anyway. Add in travelling with her work addicted boss, her boyfriend who she has “meh” feelings for, and a handful of others who had no businesses surviving as long as they have, and things aren’t exactly going as planned. But despite threats of cannibalism, infected water supplies, and possibly even mutants, Verdell is willing to put in as little effort as she can get away with to survive.

  

EXCERPT:

In those three years, Bruce had slept through every movie that I picked, never ate any of my cooking and always chose a Patriots game over time with me. I supposed I should have noticed the signs, but there we were in this moment in time and it was over. True, the days of us hanging out on his couch over the weekends and spending evenings with friends, well, his friends, were never coming back anyway, but it felt so unnatural to try to reconcile that my plans wouldn’t take into account of his.

“Are you okay?” Robert asked.

I looked up at him. He seemed genuinely concerned.

“There are bigger things wrong, I suppose,” I said.

He pulled out his textbook. “Know where I turn when I’m feeling down?”

“Not to the secrets of risk management.”

He made a pitying sound with his mouth, opening to a page in his book. “You’re missing out. Listen. The chances of achieving organizational objectives while protecting enterprise value will be maximized by having a clear grasp on business realities, understanding what ‘risk’ is, tying risk tolerance to performance, and deploying risk management above and beyond compliance activies.” He looked up and beamed. “Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

“I literally don’t know what any of that means or why its relevant,” I said.

“It’s comforting,” he said. “Truth is a valuable commodity. And so are quality girls like you. That’s what I get out of this.”

“I’m thirty three and not a girl.” I smiled. “But thank you again.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daphne Lamb was raised in the wilds of Colorado and now resides in a very different wilderness known as Los Angeles. She is a comedian and award winning writer who has worked in television, film and video games. In her spare time, she enjoys collecting comic books, discussing awesomely bad movies and thinks about what it would be like to own a cat.

She loves connecting to fans and readers, so feel free to connect!

Book Blitz: State of Alliance by Summer Lane

State of Alliance by Summer Lane
(Collapse Series #5)
Publication date: January 30th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Post-Apocalyptic


There is no such thing as safe.

For Commander Cassidy Hart, staying alive is only one of her day-to-day problems. As a newly
minted Senator of the State of California, she must travel to Monterey Bay with the hope of bringing an agreement between the militia forces and the Pacific Northwest Alliance as the United States desperately battles against the shadow invasion forces of Omega.

But Monterey is not what it seems. The threat of another Omega attack looms on the horizon, and Commander Chris Young – the love of Cassidy’s life – is not the only important person in Cassidy’s life who is keeping secrets. Assassinations, betrayal and startling revelations lie ahead.
The war is now. Fight or die.
Choose your side.

The fifth installment in the international bestselling Collapse Series, a YA/NA post-apocalyptic romantic adventure.

    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Summer Lane is the author of the international bestselling Collapse Series and Zero Trilogy. She owns WB Publishing and Writing Belle, an online magazine dedicated to the Art of Storytelling. Summer is also an accomplished creative writing teacher and professional journalist. She lives in the Central Valley of California where she creates her stories and shares them with the world.

                

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Book Blitz: Spark Rising by Kate Corcino

Spark Rising by Kate Corcino
Publication date: December 15th 2014
Genres: New Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction

All that’s required to ignite a revolution is a single spark rising.

Two hundred years after the cataclysm that annihilated fossil fuels, Sparks keep electricity flowing through their control of energy-giving Dust. The Council of Nine rebuilt civilization on the backs of Sparks, offering citizens a comfortable life in a relo-city in exchange for power, particularly over the children able to fuel the future. The strongest of the boys are taken as Wards and raised to become elite agents, the Council’s enforcers and spies. Strong girls—those who could advance the rapidly-evolving matrilineal power—don’t exist. Not according to the Council.

Lena Gracey died as a child, mourned publicly by parents desperate to keep her from the Council. She was raised in hiding until she fled the relo-city for solitary freedom in the desert. Lena lives off the grid, selling her power on the black market.

Agent Alex Reyes was honed into a calculating weapon at the Ward School to do the Council’s dirty work. But Alex lives a double life. He’s leading the next generation of agents in a secret revolution to destroy those in power from within.

The life Lena built to escape her past ends the day Alex arrives looking for a renegade Spark.

           

EXCERPT

In Spark Rising, Lena Gracey trusts the wrong man to keep her family safe, and it costs her freedom. In custody, she tries to stay one step ahead of the Agents determined to learn what they can about her rare power. When her mother is brought in as a means to control her, Lena will do whatever it takes to keep her safe, and only one man in the room is smart enough to be worried.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

Lucas cocked his head, and his mouth twisted at the corner. “Tell me?” His voice still had the purring, pleased burr beneath it.

Lena gritted her teeth. “What do you want to know?”

“Oh.” He frowned as if puzzled. “I thought it was obvious.” He leaned in, careful not to touch her. “I want to know your limits.” His nostrils flared again. He pulled back, sinuous as a cobra. Then he struck.

His right hand shot down across her, ripping off the electrodes at her temples. His left hand gripped her mother’s hair. He pulled her head back and stuck the electrodes to the skin of her temples.

Her mother didn’t even try to fight him. She stood almost serenely beside Lena.

“Mama, please. Do something. Fight back.” The buzz in her head quieted with the electrodes gone from her temples, but the current still burned into her from the others.

Lucas grinned. “Fight back? Against the three men in the room? How should she do that?” He flexed his hand in her mother’s hair, moving her head with the tightening of his fingers. “She’s not like you. She’s not strong, is she?”

“Strong enough to keep me hidden from you assholes.” She swallowed. She looked back up at the ceiling above her. Perhaps if he couldn’t see her into her eyes, he couldn’t see her fear. He couldn’t enjoy it.

He laughed softly. “It’s up to you, Lena. If you want to help her, you’re going to have to show us what you can do.”

A soft curse came from the corner. “You’re a fool, Lucas,” Reyes said. “What do you think is going to happen if you piss her off enough to break free? What if your little set-up there can’t hold her?” 

Lucas rolled his eyes at the interference. He didn’t bother to turn to Reyes.  “It’ll hold. It always holds. And we always get what we need out of them.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Kate Corcino is a reformed shy girl who found her voice (and uses it…a lot). She believes in magic, coffee, Starburst candies, genre fiction, descriptive profanity, and cackling over wine with good friends. A recovering Dr. Pepper addict, she knows the only addiction worth feeding is the one that follows the “click-whooooosh” of a new story settling into her brain.

She also believes in the transformative power of screwing up and second chances. Cheers to works-in-progress of the literary and lifelong variety!

She is currently gearing up for publication of Ignition Point and Spark Rising , the first books in the Progenitor Saga, a near future dystopian adventure series with romantic elements, science, magic, and plenty of action.

           

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Review: Creators by Tiffany Truitt

 Creators, the third book in Tiffany Truitt's dystopian saga of love, loss, and survival, Tess' story delves further into questions that matter not only to a young woman trying to survive in a world that has decided her kind is worth less than nothing, but resound in modern daily life as well: what does it mean to be a family, what makes someone human, how does love change a person, and what exactly is this thing called womanhood, and how can or should it define one. Interestingly, Creators probes myriad faces of womanhood from political, emotional, and social perspectives, all within the context of a world in which pregnancy, as often as not, is a death sentence. 

As with many books that deal with women's sexual roles set in post apocalyptic patriarcal dystopias, Creators deals heavily with issues of bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and consent in a way that, at times,  reminds me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Truitt has an interesting way of addressing the social programming and propaganda that conditions people who are systematically being abused into not even realizing they're being abused through the kind of rape culture Tess observes as a direct result of the health crisis facing pregnant women in Tess' world.  In dealing with Tess and her father's relationship, it put me in mind of Dearly Departed, while raising the question, once again, at what point does one's responsibility to one's blood family stop, and their wider responsibility to one's species begin? Aside from the social justice issues which permeate Creators, Truitt writes with momentum and energy, propelling the story from one confrontation to the next. 

Of course, as Creators is the third book in the Lost Souls trilogy, you'll want to start with Chosen Ones, work your way through Naturals, and finish with the unexpected and rather breathless plot twists in Creators. Yes, I'm admitting that I was surprised, and it was good to be surprised. 

    

Review and Giveaway: The Path Unchosen by Kim Cleary

If you're a fan of the very non-YA Herculine series, this story will grab you and hold tight from the very beginning. Written in the gothic style complete with meaningful glances, and heavy on the atmosphere and accessible sensory detail, Cleary builds a post-apocolyptic throwback world where the rules have changed with energy. Something in her world building puts me in mind of The Dearly Departed series.

I admit, ever since my earliest Necromancer books, they've had a special place in my heart, so opening with Judy, a young natural necromancer being raised in a convent orphanage, it nestled right into that place in my heart and I decided from the beginning that Judy and I were going to be good friends. I liked that she was a straightforward girl and that Cleary never pretends that she has the sort of omnipotence of a character, but instead Judy has the attention span of a real person who misses details and daydreams. She reminded me a little of Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre, if she was a post-apocalyptic necromancer in a world overrun by the living dead.

On the one hand, I wanted more of the world building details and backstory, but on the other hand, I don't suppose that they're pertinent to the story if it's Judy's world and she accepts it. A book about my life wouldn't include the entire social history that led to the conditions in which I live with the technology we enjoy and the epidemiology associated  with the diseases we currently face.

All and all, it's an interesting read with some tea and biscuits before bedtime, you know, if zombies, intrigue, and the casual raising of the dead won't give you too many nightmares.


Check out the Path Unchosen Blog Tour's giveaway below if you'd like to enter to win your very own copy.



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Guest Post: World Building in a Post-Apocalyptic Novel

GUEST POST: World Building in a Post-Apocalyptic Novel

This is an interesting thing for me to write about because I don’t typically concentrate on any world building; my novels are character-driven novels and the world is a backdrop. In the case of In Between Seasons the world isn’t all that much different than the world we live in now, except for the fact that family life is much more nuclear.

When I began writing the novel I basically used the theory of what many “dooms day preppers” use and used what I know about some preppers to create the locations that the characters would be in. I did think about things like how they would have electricity, but this was a relatively easy fix: solar panels. I wasn’t going to have Kate sit there and explain every nuisance of her life, though because to her it’s normal so there would be no reason for her to do that. She does squint her eyes against the glare of the solar panels and that’s how it’s dropped in. Electricity really does run most everything that we currently have so they still have TV’s—no cable of course, you never see the characters doing anything besides watching old DVD’s. They also have most manufactured products because people can still obtain these things because we can cook, sew, etc without the need for machines. Oh, and Pop Tarts are like cock roaches, they last forever.

There are certain things, however, that are less common in the world like jewelry. The reason for this is simple, without mining and little contact with other tribes, all the metal were melted down for ammunition, which is another limited resource.

The challenge with the world building in this novel was not giving too much away because then it would have explained everything, which none of the characters can do in this novel because they truly don’t know much of what is actually going on. The second novel of The Fall series, Permafrost, will have more world building because the characters in it actually have knowledge of what occurred during the fall, and what happened in the aftermath.

Kate and Hunter were removed from the chaos when they were very young and they only know what they were told. In order to keep control of their tribes, both their parents didn’t tell them or the other younger tribe members what happened and what is going on in the world now. They work on the basis that the world has broken down into tribes of people who prepped before the downfall of the government and now they are at war with one another to keep what they pillaged. The tribes have a military hierarchy based on the fact that they are always at war, and the world is based on a patriarchal view (essentially, women play very simple roles of farming, cooking and most of the women Kate knows are quite lazy). There also had to be a separation of those with different roles. In the case of the Marks tribe, there is a farming base that provides supplies and food, a headquarters where the Chief is located, and an army base where the men train and those married women live and basically do nothing. Women are not expected and should not be trained to fight. These things are all a cover for what is really going on, but you’ll have to read Permafrost to learn about that.

BIO
Cassandra Giovanni is an avid writer of young adult novels and can’t wait to share her work with you. The genres of her novels include dystopian, paranormal, mystery and romance all aimed at appealing to adults and young adults alike. Her personal goal with her writing is to show the reader the character’s stories through their dialogue and actions instead of just telling the reader what is happening. She began writing at a very young age, in fact from the moment she could draw she was telling stories that way. At age seven she won a contest in American Girl Doll to have a chapter she had written published. From that point on she was always writing, if not on paper than in her head. In May 2012 she published her first novel, In Between Seasons, which demonstrated her unique writing style and approach to the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. On Halloween 2012 Cassandra released her second novel, Walking in the Shadows. This novel puts a new twist on the obsession of vampires in literature and explores some of the darkest parts of human nature, while still showing that there is always hope–if we only choose to believe in ourselves.

Cassandra is also a professional photographer with areas of interest such as car features, floral and architecture. Her photography company, Gio Design Studios, will be transitioning into a publication marketing company that designs covers and marketing materials for authors utilizing the company’s photography. She is currently studying to receive her associates degree in Marketing. Cassandra is happily married to the man of her dreams and they live in the rolling hills of New England with the other love of her life their dog, Bubski.

BUY LINKS:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Between-Seasons-The-Fall-ebook/dp/B0080T717S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356131936&sr=8-2&keywords=IN+BETWEEN+SEASONS
Barnes & Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-between-seasons-cassandra-giovanni/1110616858?ean=2940014371537
Kobo:
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/In-Between-Seasons/book-1ommvCWVB0KvF41WJCsttA/page1.html?s=ebSIwkCSf0i946pjhKLZVg&r=1
Direct from Author & Book Merchandise:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/CGiovanniWrites

MEDIA LINKS:
www.cgiovanni.com
www.cgiovanniwrites.wordpress.com
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6094287.Cassandra_Giovanni

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