Hello World!
Today I have a new book for you.
Don’t be fooled by the pretty and oh-so-romantic, this is such a well-written
zombie post-apocalyptic book. I received a copy, and I will post a review soon J
After Life Lessons
BOOK 1
LAILA
BLAKE & L.C. SPOERING
Available: April 8, 2014
Format: E-book & Paperback (POD)
Genre: General Fiction, Post
Apoc Love Story
Tags: Zombies, Survival, Dystopian, Romance, Road Adventure, Family Drama, Love
Story, Gender Roles, New Adult, Adult
Warnings: Contains language some might find offensive, some gore and situations of a sexual nature.
Lengthlurb: 81,000 words // 330
pages.
Blurb:
Hulking shadows emerge out of the chaotic
flurries of the blizzard. Something is dying, and so they come, like vultures.
After months of struggling
south to escape the zombie-infested remains of New York, a snowstorm traps 23-year old
artist, Emily, and her son in an abandoned gas station. Starving and desperate,
they encounter Aaron, an Army medic on a mission of his own, who offers them a
ride to ease the journey.
The road is a long and
dangerous place to travel, and every day brings a new threat. But fear and
adrenaline also drive the two closer together; they find laughter and a
budding attraction that starts to thaw at their numb and deadened feelings. And
that’s when the pain really starts to hit, when places long thought lost
prickle back to life. Eventually, they will have to fight not just for
survival, but for a future together, or their broken world will swallow them
whole.
Excerpt
After months of struggling
south to escape the zombie-infested remains of New York, a snowstorm traps 23-year old
artist, Emily, and her son in an abandoned gas station. Starving and desperate,
they encounter Aaron, an Army medic on a mission of his own, who offers them a
ride to ease the journey.
The road is a long and
dangerous place to travel, and every day brings a new threat. But fear and
adrenaline also drive the two closer together; they find laughter and a
budding attraction that starts to thaw at their numb and deadened feelings. And
that’s when the pain really starts to hit, when places long thought lost
prickle back to life. Eventually, they will have to fight not just for survival,
but for a future together, or their broken world will swallow them whole.
Something was dying in the
flurries of snow. The wind had piled it into drifts, threw it into icy
funnels that danced between the trees.
Emily couldn’t see five
feet of road in front of them, but the desperate howl pierced the wind. A
dog maybe, or something altogether wilder. One hand firmly wrapped around
Song’s wrist, she dragged the boy along. He grew heavier, slower with each
step. Piece by piece, they had let go of their possessions, offered them
like sacrifices to the cold, to earth’s gravity and fatigue. Song had long
stopped complaining; he’d even stopped coughing, just hung on to her, placing a
shaking foot in front of the other.
The dog howled again, and
Emily forced her legs to quicken the pace. Song whined, and then his hand
slipped out of hers, and he sunk onto a pile of snow. She was aware they were
going to die; that was as clear as the icicles that hung from the hard
guitar-case she still carried strapped to her backpack. She could barely walk
on her own skinny legs and they wouldn’t get far, but she pulled him up anyway,
hefted him onto her hip. His frozen cheek came to rest against hers. He
coughed, tried to lock his ankles around her waist, but his boots were too
slippery, and he soon lost the strength to try again.
Emily was not far behind.
With each step along the icy road, her knees shook, and even in the split
second in which she slipped, she found herself utterly unsurprised, almost
unmoved.
They were going to die.
Blinding pain blasted
through her wrist, up along her arm when she landed—hard on her left side,
protecting Song from the brunt of it—and, still, she was left impassive. The
pain drove tears to her eyes, and the wind froze them on her cheek, but she
hardly noticed. She struggled back to her feet, sucked in stinging breath after
stinging breath, and pressed forward.
There had to be something
out there, something other than the snow, the trees that formed an aisle on
either side of them. Hope felt foolish—but this was logic. They were not out in
the wilderness; there had to be something.
“Song please, please…” she
begged, when he slipped down her thigh again, clinging to her neck like a
monkey. She hefted him back up, swallowed the pain that shot through her arm,
and tried to squint through the snow. Another howl filled the stillness, closer
this time.
In her head, in her legs,
it felt like she was running. The truth came closer to padding along on heavy
feet, but it was the idea that mattered, the breath that burned in her lungs.
She envisioned herself bursting through the trees to some large, well-appointed
house, with food and a bathtub big enough to float in, to make it all worth it.
What she found—in the
end—was a decrepit gas station, but she reminded herself, sing-song voice in
her head and all, beggars can’t be choosers.
They made an inelegant
entrance, crashing through the door that hung on its hinges, into a convenience
store that had been ransacked long before, the toppled shelves mostly emptied,
covered in dust and a fine layer of ice. Emily hauled the both of them through
the tangle of wood and wire, past the cash register that lay, gaping open like
a wound, on the floor by the counter. The wind whistled through the broken
windows, and had it not been for the storeroom just behind the cigarette
display, there would have been no point to the gas station at all, not for
them.
The storeroom had only one
small window and a rotting desk—no food in sight. It was cold, still, but
temperature was relative—they were out of the snow, out of the wind, and she
could finally set her boy on the floor, and collapse herself.
Every motion sent pain
crashing up her arm, and somewhere in the back of her mind that scared her
almost as much as Song’s cough and the way his cheeks were burning up the
moment he was out of the wind. Biting down, she pilfered through her pack,
throwing onto him whatever they had left: a few clothes, a blanket. Where was
the towel she’d always used to rub him dry?
“I’m getting some snow to
melt, okay? Don’t move.”
Song didn’t answer; Emily
grabbed the empty bottle and struggled to her feet. She thought of fires, of
tea and food as she stumbled through the store-room, cradling her arm and
ducking her chin into her scarf to protect her from the wind. Kicking the door
open again with her boot, she squatted down, and pushed snow into the bottle
until her gloves were caked in the stuff. She was back on her feet, shivering,
when something broke through her pain-addled senses.
The dog barked, once, then
again—vicious, aggressive and scared. A shadow hushed through the snow
somewhere far ahead. Emily stood, frozen on the spot until, in the distance,
hulking shadows emerged—a soft grey against the chaotic white of the blizzard.
GIVEAWAY
LAILA
BLAKE & L.C. SPOERING
L.C. and Laila met in 2010
on an online forum and have been inseparable ever since. Having supported each
other in their individual writing projects for years, they finally decided to
work more closely together in a cross-continental cooperative writing partnership.
Together, they host the podcast Lilt and started their micropublishing venture
Lilt Literary in 2013.
L.C. (generally known as Lorrie) lives in Denver, Colorado
with her husband, kids, and too many pets.
Laila is a nerdy German translator, living in Cologne with her kitten
and a lot of sparkly lights.
Have a nice day!
