PHASE ONE: IDENTIFY by Rose Wynters

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Virtual Book Tour Dates: 12/30/14 – 1/13/15

Genres: Young Adult Romance, Horror, Zombies, Science Fiction

Series: Territory of the Dead

Tour Promo: All books in this series are $.99!

Available free with Kindle Unlimited.

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Blurb:

Eighteen-year-old Tabitha Alexander had just graduated from high school when the dead invaded her small town of Pleasant, Louisiana. Working as a checkout girl in the only grocery store in town, she barely made it out with her life.

But the night was only beginning.

What started out as a group of three grows, as they are joined by the few that are still alive. New bonds are formed as old ones die, and Tabitha suddenly finds that the guy she’s always wanted might just want her back.

The timing couldn’t be worse, though. The zombies in Pleasant are smart, with an awareness that’s horrifying. And when the zombies discover the house full of survivors, those inside realize that the walls aren’t strong enough to keep them out.

All hope is lost. Or is it? Salvation comes in the form of a mysterious man, with a pair of steely-gray eyes and an arsenal to match. He rescues them, but at what cost? Kellan can’t seem to keep his otherworldly eyes off of her.

She’s no match for him. She knows this. Yet, he intrigues her… and Tabitha knows it’s the most dangerous reaction of all.

 

Excerpt:

I exhaled deeply as I finished scanning the last coupon. The woman gave me a sharp look of annoyance, as if I had no room for complaint. Really, what did she expect? Was I supposed to grovel and thank her for allowing me the honor of scanning her precious coupons ten minutes before closing time?

Apparently so. “You know, young lady, it wouldn’t hurt you to smile at your customers and thank them when they offer you their coupons. I don’t think I’ve ever had such poor customer service. I don’t have to shop here, especially with this kind of attitude.” She was working herself up into a rage, her expression full of self-righteous indignation.

I didn’t reply, but instead pushed the total button. Some of the customers in line groaned, while others shifted in impatience. They really didn’t want to be further delayed by her rant. She slammed a hundred dollar bill down on the counter. “Where is your manager? I want to speak with him now.”

I pointed towards Jim, as he straightened his shoulders and attempted to look professional. I could only imagine the holier-than-thou attitude he would have as he sympathetically agreed with her. Around here, I could never do anything right, or so it seemed.

I didn’t see anyone else standing around, though, willing to put up with his crap. If I didn’t need the money so badly, I’d walk out the door faster than he could blink. I was tired of the humiliation and tired of being blamed for the lines, just because he was too tight to hire on adequate staff.

I was silent as I quickly made her change. What could any person say? She was mad due to reasons of her own, something that really didn’t concern me. With one last glare, she huffed and moved on in his direction. She never made it, though.

It would have been worth the complaint and subsequent chewing out I would have received, if the events of the night just wouldn’t have happened. I would later look back on it and pray that things had ended differently. You can’t change events that are completely out of your control, though.

Even so, anything would have been preferable to that one moment when you find your reality has just been blown to pieces and would never be the same again. That’s assuming you live to survive it.

She was halfway to Jim, her teased hairdo bouncing, when it happened. A loud, panicked scream tore through the night, originating somewhere from the parking lot in front of the store. Even through the thick glass, we could hear it loudly. It sounded like someone was being murdered. I immediately stopped scanning, turning in an attempt to see what was happening.

A body slammed against the glass, his face and palms pressed to the surface. It was a horrid sight. His pupils were red and crazed, his face extremely pale and dirty. Dark red blood was smeared across his cheeks and chin. The man stood still for a moment, just watching us with his crazy eyes. Something reanimated him. He slid his palms down the clear, clean glass, leaving a trail of bloody streaks.

 

Buy Link:

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About the Author:

Rose Wynters resides in the southern portion of the USA. When not writing, she enjoys traveling, camping, and meeting new people.

 

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Giveaway:

Win a $10 Amazon gift card! This giveaway will run 12/30/14 – 1/13/15. Open worldwide! Click here to enter the Rafflecopter.

 

THE WARRING DEAD by David Monette

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Virtual Book Tour Dates: 12/2/14 – 12/30/14

Genres: Horror, Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian

Tour Promo: Available free with Kindle Unlimited!

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Blurb:

The zombie holocaust has come, and there is no place that is truly safe.

Four intrepid survivors, Sasha, Terrance, Virgil, and the little girl, Max, have escaped their island stronghold, only to find themselves in the arms of what is left of the worlds military forces just when a showdown is imminent between the armies of undead and the combined might of the human race.

From the mountains of Northern New York, to the shores of the Potomac, the battle is joined. Trapped in its net, the island survivors must learn more of their enemies, their allies… and the strange nature of one of their own.

 

Excerpt:

The breeze whistled softly through the broken window. In a lonesome, uncaring way, it played along the edges of papers and leaves that its more violent cousins had swept into corners or under the rows of school desks that filled the classroom. Rambunctious in its innocence, it tousled through the room’s scattered hopes and the dreams they had ensnared, and went off down the gray hallway and into other vacant rooms as though racing the footsteps of morning’s light.

At the entrance to the building, the zephyr gathered strength, drove itself, defiant and free, through the unclosed double doors, and out, out, out, over a schoolyard choked with weeds, with grass no mower would ever touch, with rusting swing-sets, with unused toys… and with the undead.

For they were there.

Shambling about in their thoughtless way, their eyes vacant pools containing a mystery no sane person could ever plumb, these human shells moved through the debris of their former lives like sleepwalkers that would never wake. They were all ages, all sexes, and of all different body sizes. The smallest, a petite redheaded girl of around two years of age, staggered aimlessly along with the rest, her chin hanging slack and useless over the torn stem of her neck. Beneath this, covering the cold flesh of her torso, were the rags of a bloodstained summer dress that roughly one year ago, before the rising of the dead, had been new.

Had she been living, she would have been a cute kid. So went Virgil’s thoughts as he, along with two other people, lay studying the undead from the shade of a wood line, one hundred yards distant, where the land rose slightly to form a natural observation platform. The heavily muscled man and his compatriots wore military helmets and were dressed in loose, green, camouflage clothing worn over a tighter fitting layer of leather that encased their bodies from neck to foot. The camouflage was needed to help shield them from sight, and the leather was needed to help shield them from the infectious bites of the undead, bites that would, in a matter of minutes, turn any living person into one of the aforementioned undead.

Virgil kept the little girl in the telescopic sights of his MP5SD sub-machine gun. From there, she looked different… better. She was a target. Not someone’s little girl. Not a precious little thing that someone had held, rocked, sung to, and played with, whose hair smelled like peaches and whose smile could turn the day bright and new. None of that. Through the hard, round tube she was a thing. Or at least it made it easier to see her that way. It helped him to do what he had to do.

He flicked the safety off.

His finger squeezed the trigger… gently, gently.

For some reason, she stopped, and turned her back to him. The breeze caught her shining hair and lifted it slightly, her back and arms were smooth and white like marble in the sun.

Breathe evenly.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t…

Pause the next breath…

With a suppressed hissing punch, the 9mm hollow point round burst from the barrel of the weapon and struck the girl’s skull a quarter of a second later. There was an explosion of blood and brain matter, skull and hair, and without another sound, she returned to the earth where she belonged.

 

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About the Author:

David Monette was born and raised in the cold rural hinterlands of upstate New York. As a typical kid in a typical community, life for him was pretty… typical. He liked to draw creatures and contraptions but as the second born of four sons, such ability was merely a convenient way of standing out from the crowd. As he inexpertly stumbled through high school, his talent for capturing the images in his head onto paper was noticed and encouraged by both teachers and family members.

Without any other idea of what to do with himself after graduation, besides a vague idea of doing something art oriented, he decided to attend Mohawk Valley Community College where he received his associate’s degree in Advertising Design and Production. Acting on excellent advice from his teachers at this institution, he went on to Syracuse University where he learned a great deal about art and eventually wound up with a bachelor’s degree in Illustration.

With a disturbingly large amount of student debt and a decent portfolio, he learned what it was to be a starving artist. Namely, he found that artists don’t starve; they simply pick up an endless series of part time work to pay the rent while continuing to plug away at their true passion. This was essentially what he did until he received his first illustration job and from that point on, he didn’t look back. As an illustrator, his highly detailed fantasy and science fiction work has appeared in many books, magazines, board games, and collectible card games for such varied publishers as Dell Publishing, Wizards of the Coast, and Atlas Games. Initially, he had completed these diverse projects utilizing oil and acrylic paints as well as pen and inks.

As digital technology continued to improve, however, he decided it was time to tackle the arduous task of mastering the computer and eventually figured out a way to adapt his style to a digital format. With this knowledge and experience, he went back to school and received his master’s degree in Illustration from the University of Hartford. While there, his instructors reviewed his written work and had strongly suggested that he combine his writing ability with his talent as an illustrator to chart his own path.

And at the end of this arc, an author was born.

 

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Giveaway:

Enter to win one of of three limited edition, original cover, copies of the first book in the series, The Zombie Axiom. USA only, please! This giveaway will run 12/2/14 – 12/30/14. Enter at Goodreads.

 

I TRULY LAMENT: Working Through The Holocaust by Mathias B. Freese

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Virtual Book Tour Dates: 12/3/14 – 12/31/14

Genres: Literary Fiction, Holocaust Fiction, Short Stories

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Blurb:

“…Freese’s haunting lament might best be explained (at least to me) by something Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote about Herman Melville’s endless search for answers to questions that perplexed him all his adult life. Melville was incessantly obsessed with what one might call the why of it all — life, death, metaphysical mysteries. Similar to Freese, Melville was repeatedly afflicted with a dark and depressive state of mind.” –Duff Brenna, Professor Emeritus, CSU, San Marcos

 

Praise for I Truly Lament:

I have read many books about the Holocaust as I find the subject very interesting from a psychological standpoint. I have to say though, that Mr. Freese has placed an entirely new twist on the subject. I will admit to being perplexed at first, having expected something a bit different. As the collection unfolded, I was drawn into the raw emotion. I particularly enjoyed the story, “Cantor Matyas Balogh.” Matyas found love so late in life, only to have it ripped from him. Freese does not just tell a tale, he creates a basis for reflection. I believe that he is completely correct when he states that someone can never truly understand the Holocaust. We can write about it, but the lasting impact on the people that survived can never be put into words. I Truly Lament is a remarkable collection that will leave the reader speechless. – Heather Osborne for Readers’ Favorite

 

Excerpt:

At a social distance from me now, as exact and

regulatory as a geometric theorem, I see the Jew as a

thing rather than entity. He is foreign to me.

The Disenchanted Golem

IN MY LATEST INCARNATION I was a golem for a few months in

Poland. Invoked by the mumbo-jumbo Kabalistic rites of a Hasidic

tzaddik, I was raised from nothing. Of course, Jews have no idea where

I come from or how I exist when not on call. They know nothing

of the fabric of my being. They believe, or at least this Hasid did,

that prayer—and demands—bring me forth. Rubbish! My directive

comes from a different source and one that’s not accountable to me.

I cannot explain my existence. I’m in the dark much like the rabbi.

And when I wake to a call and go about my tasks, which are often to

tear out legs and arms of Poles, in this instance, I find it a necessary

evil of which I’m a significant part. I’d rather rest in soil from which

I come, or at least that is the matter that forms my lumpish shape.

Going way back to 1492, Señor Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor

who was of Jewish descent, cursed me for dismembering a fellow

priest whom I’d beaten with a candelabrum until he curled up in a ball

and died. Spry Torquemada fled from my presence and I lumbered

after him, finally grabbing the wily old bastard by his caftan. I can’t

speak, which is problematic, for I’ve seen or experienced so much

about death and dying that I’ve a lot to say. Sometimes I would like

interrogate the victim to see how he responds not only to his imminent

death but to my physical presence: which is more terrifying?

Anyway, I scared the shit out of the Grand Inquisitor but let him

live. I really don’t know why. Before I left his home I peed in his

private chapel, the piss laced with mud and twigs, an earthy aroma

to it, like asparagus, essentially all the parts of my makeup. Basically

I am mud.

I like to do a good job. Different golems act differently. We’re all

of the same construction. Quite simply, as a golem I need no compass

for finding a malicious Gentile. I just know his whereabouts and I

intuitively seek him out—unnerving, if you’re a Gentile. Jews mistakenly

think I act for them; well, yes and no, basically more no than yes.

I’m an independent slayer, like the angel of death. I definitely don’t

act out of religious reasons or because Jews need me at this time or

another. It’s all so complicated as to my origins and purposes.

 

Buy Links:

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About the Author:

MATHIAS B. FREESE is a writer, teacher, and psychotherapist. His recent collection of essays, This Mobius Strip of Ifs, was the winner of the National Indie Excellence Award of 2012 in general non-fiction and a 2012 Global Ebook Award finalist. His I Truly Lament: Working Through the Holocaust was one of three finalists chosen in the 2012 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest out of 424 submissions.

 

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Giveaway:

Win a print copy of I Truly Lament by Mathias B. Freese on the tour and giveaway! This giveaway will run 12/3/14 – 12/31/14. Open to residents of Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and the USA. Enter Here