Showing posts with label Rhiannon Frater. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Midnight Spell Cover Reveal

Cover designed by Phatpuppy Art.

The Midnight Spell - Publication date: February, 2013

Best friends since kindergarten, Adam and Christy have always been the perpetual outsiders in their small town in Texas. The other kids call Adam gay and Christy a witch.

On both counts the bullies are right.

Their junior year in high school seems destined to be the same old same old until Christy decides to cast a love spell for Adam at the midnight hour. The next day an alluring and mysterious boy enrolls at school and sets hearts a flutter, including Adam’s. Meanwhile, Christy’s mad crush on the handsome football player Ian seems to be going nowhere fast and her witch puberty is making her life miserable.

When a great evil arrives in town that threatens everything they hold dear, the best friends realize that finding a boyfriend is the least of their worries. Soon Adam and Christy will have to battle a force of darkness that has killed in their town before, and will again.

AUTHOR BIOS

Rhiannon Frater:

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies trilogy (The First Days, Fighting to Survive, Siege,) and the author of three other books: the vampire novels Pretty When She Dies and The Tale of the Vampire Bride and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. Inspired to independently produce her work from the urging of her fans, she published The First Days in late 2008 and quickly gathered a cult following. She won the Dead Letter Award back-to-back for both The First Days and Fighting to Survive, the former of which the Harrisburg Book Examiner called ‘one of the best zombie books of the decade.’ Rhiannon is currently represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry + Literary Media agency. You may contact her by email.

Author Links:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

Kody Boye:

Kody Boye was born and raised in Southeastern Idaho. Since his initial publication in the Yellow Mama Webzine in 2007, he has gone on to sell nearly three-dozen stories to various markets. He is the author of the short story collection Amorous Things, the novella The Diary of Dakota Hammell, the zombie novel Sunrise and the dark fantasy novel Blood. His fiction has been described as ‘Surreal, beautiful and harrowing’ (Fantastic Horror,) while he himself has been heralded as a writer beyond his years(Bitten by Books.) He currently lives and writes in the Austin, Texas area.

Author Links:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Pretty When She Kills Blog Tour - Interview

I'm super excited to be taking part in the Pretty When She Kills blog tour. Author Rhiannon Frater is awesome and one of my favourite authors I've discovered since starting Megan Likes Books! And today I get to share an interview with all of you!

How does Pretty When She Kills differ from Pretty When She Dies?

In the first book Amaliya is the center of the story and it’s primarily about her coming to terms with her new nature and how she deals with the constant threat of her creator, The Summoner. PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES could actually be split into two parts. The first part is all about Amaliya on her own, struggling to survive, while the second part is about what happens when she arrives in Austin, Texas and encounters Cian, another vampire. The primary supporting cast enters the story at the halfway mark.

In the second book, some of the supporting cast takes a much bigger role in the story as it expands outward. The reader gets to see just how Amaliya’s presence in Austin has rippled out to affect the supernatural world. She is a rare creature: a necromancer vampire. Her mere existence has impacted a lot of lives and the very fabric of the supernatural realm.

I really enjoyed bringing new characters into the mix and while moving Samantha into a stronger role in this sequel.

Which of your characters do you have the most in common with?

I really don’t base characters off of me, so they are their own people. I really don’t have anything in common with them personality-wise per se. Jeff and I do share a love of books and Samantha’s Betsey Johnson purse fetish matches my own. Otherwise, nothing much really.

Describe Pretty When She Kills in 7 words.

Amaliya is not the only necromancer vampire.

Did you have to do any research for Pretty When She Kills? If so, on what and how much?

I live in Texas, so research is driving around my own city. I had already established the rules of the world in the first book, so it was fun just moving the characters through it this time around.

If you won the lotto, what is the first thing you would buy?

A Tesla Roadster! That car is a thing of beauty!

What three authors have most influenced your work?

Bram Stoker, Charlotte Bronte and Agatha Christie because they inspired me to find my own writing voice and embrace my imagination.

Finally, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Read a lot, write a lot. It’s the best advice ever given to me. If a writer tells me they never read, I have no interest in reading their work. Reading the works of other authors is a way to learn the craft and hone your own writing voice. It’s a great way to learn what to do, and what not to do. And, of course, if you want to be a writer, you have to actually WRITE. It’s amazing how many people tell me they want to be a published author, but actually never write.

Thanks so much to Rhiannon for taking the time to answer my questions.

Find the Book: Goodreads | Amazon

Plus it's available as an ebook!

Find the Author: Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Website | Facebook

But wait! There's more! There's also a tour-wide giveaway AND a ebook giveaway right here!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Theme Thursday - The Last Bastion of the Living Edition

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event hosted by Reading Between the Pages. Anyone can participate in it. The rules are simple:

A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday’s)
Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”

This will give us a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors.

The theme for this week is

TREES Plant; Shrub

It's been a while since I did a Theme Thursday, but this week's comes from The Last Bastion of the Living by Rhiannon Frater.

"Okay, we keep along the dam until we can get to those trees over there." He pointed to a thin line of pines growing up against a steep incline. "We need to get into the foothills."

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Last Bastion of the Living Blog Tour: Midway Review and Giveaway

So I'm trying something new for the Last Bastion of the Living blog tour, a midway review! That means that I'll be sharing my thoughts from where I am, pretty close to the midpoint of the book. Stay tuned for my final review in about a week or so!

Synopsis:

The Bastion was humanity’s last hope against the fearsome undead creatures known as the Inferi Scourge. A fortified city with a high wall, surrounded by lush land rich with all the resources needed to survive, protected by high mountain summits, and a massive gate to secure the only pass into the valley, the Bastion became the last stronghold of the living on earth. But one fateful day, the gate failed and the Inferi Scourge destroyed the human settlements outside the walls and trapped the survivors inside the city. Now decades later, the last remaining humans are struggling to survive in a dying city as resources and hope dwindle.

Vanguard Maria Martinez has lived her whole life within the towering walls of steel. She yearns for a life away from the overcrowded streets, rolling blackouts, and food shortages, but there is no hope for anyone as long as the Inferi Scourge howl outside the high walls. Her only refuge from the daily grind is in the arms of her lover, Dwayne Reichardt, an officer in the Bastion Constabulary. Both are highly-decorated veterans of the last disastrous push against the Inferi Scourge. Their secret affair is her only happiness.

Then one day Maria is summoned to meet with a mysterious representative from the Science Warfare Division and is offered the opportunity to finally destroy the Inferi Scourge in the valley and close the gate. The rewards of success are great, but she will have to sacrifice everything, possibly even her life, to accomplish the ultimate goal of securing the future of humanity and saving it from extinction.

My Thoughts:

So far, I am in love with this book! I really enjoyed another of Rhiannon's books, The First Days, but I actually prefer The Last Bastion of the Living! Maria is a great character, likeable, fiery and imperfect, my favourite combination! I also really love the world Frater created. I can easily picture what life in the Bastion must be like for the survivors and I really like the concept that some survivors have never known a world without the Inferi Scourge. This great setting really clarifies Maria's desperation to destroy the Inferi threat through any means necessary!

At halfway through this book, I want to highly recommend this book to everyone! Unless things take a turn for the worst in the second half, this book is on track to be one of my favourites for the year!

About the Author:

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the AS THE WORLD DIES zombie trilogy and the author of several other books: the vampire novels PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES and THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. The first two books in her zombie trilogy, THE FIRST DAYS and FIGHTING TO SURVIVE, are available now in bookstores. SIEGE will be in bookstores on April 24, 2012.
Website

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Giveaway:

Rhiannon has been kind enough to offer one lucky reader a chance to win a ebook of The Last Bastion of the Living. You NEED to enter this giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Review: The First Days by Rhiannon Frater

Blurb:

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.

My Thoughts:

To start off, I love zombies. I have a complete zombie-apocalyspe plan in place, with Plan Bs and Plan Cs to boot (1 involving the apartment building across the street and another involving my brother's ranch). That said, I'm also a bit of a zombie snob. I like my zombies dumb and my protagonists smart. I'm not afraid to stand up (or sit behind my laptop) and say that the last to Romero films I watched (Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead) were absolute crap. Before you all hunt me down, I still agree Romero is the master, but his recent films are no where near as good as his earlier work.

The point of this post is not to criticize Romero, it's to applaud Rhiannon Frater for her great zombie novel, The First Days. It has everything I want in a zombie book: smart protagonists, truly undead zombies and a good story. From the very first scene, this book grabbed me and it still hasn't let go! I loved the first chapter, I can't think of a better way to start a zombie story and I can't wait until I can get the next installment from the library.

Katie and Jenni are great characters and each must deal with the loss of their families, though they do so in very different ways. I've heard a lot of people comment on Frater's use of two female protagonists (and the inclusion of homosexual relationships), but to be honest, there is so much more to this book than that and I feel like focusing on sexuality and feminism is a disservice to this awesome story.

Anyone who loves classic zombie stories will love this book. These zombies aren't sexy (like Bram in Dearly, Departed) or cool and likeable (like Angel in My Life as a White Trash Zombie). No, they are scary, stupid, bite-your-face-off monsters, which is perfect!

There were a couple things that bothered me a little about this book. First, sometimes Frater would use a lot of slang in her writing (not just in dialogue), while I would prefer slightly more polished descriptions, but a lot of that comes down to personal style and preferences. Second, I thought it was unrealistic how long the power and water lasts in this situation. I grew up in a rural area and the power would go out in a thunderstorm, let alone a zombie apocalypse!

On the Cover:

I like the grittiness of the cover and I think it fits to story. But I don't like how muscular Katie's arms are.

Favourite Character:

My favourite character was Katie. I like how competent and in control she was throughout the story, despite the difficulties she encounters.

Rating: 4.5 Hearts

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Cover Reveal - The Last Days by Rhiannon Frater

I'm super excited to be taking part in the reveal of the new mass market paperback cover of The Last Days by Rhiannon Frater. The cover design is by David Frankland.

“This is to zombies what Anne Rice was to vampires, plain and simple. It's a revolution. I like this better than The Walking Dead.”—Dread Central

Katie is driving to work one beautiful day when a dead man jumps into her car and tries to eat her. That same morning, Jenni opens a bedroom door to find her husband devouring their toddler son.

Fate puts Jenni and Katie—total strangers—together in a pickup, fleeing the suddenly zombie-filled streets of the Texas city in which they live. Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together.

During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot.

A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization.

It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love . . . anything is possible at the end of the world.

“Frater examines the zombie apocalypse with a fearless feminist’s eye and a tender feminine heart. [She] wisely balances the internal struggles with bloody good action sequences.”--Hellnotes