Two Awesome Reviews of PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES

Two new reviews went up in the blogsphere for my modern vampire novel.  I'm thrilled!  PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES was released in 2008 and has just in the last year found its audience.  It appears to be gaining momentum, which is awesome!

I have to say this is the most amazing Vampire book I have read in a long long time.  Rhiannon Frater you have blown my mind thank you!  This book had me hooked from start to finish.--KZ Book Blog

I seriously hope there will be a sequel, because I love these characters. And if you're looking for a really good adult vampire story, you should definitely read Pretty When She Dies. -- Love of Books Blog

Also, I'm very excited about an upcoming event in November. Four different book blogs will be hosting a PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES read-a-long. There should be an official post soon to give you all the details.  Here is the awesome button The Bookish Brunette created for the event.

As soon as the details are released, I will post them here.  Meanwhile, you can buy PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES at Amazon.com and prepare for this fun event.

Paperback              Kindle

Los Angeles Fan Meetup??? Sunday, October 23rd??

This is extremely last minute, so forgive me.  I will be appearing on a panel at the Aliens to Zombies Convention in Hollywood, CA this coming weekend.  I'm a last minute addition to the event, so there wasn't time to put together a book signing.

BUT...

If there are any fans in the Los Angeles area that are interested in meeting up so I can sign your books or chat, let me know. I know this is seriously last minute and may not fly at all, but someone asked me if this would be possible.

The meetup would be in Hollywood at around 5pm on Sunday, October 23rd.

Please let me know if you're in the area and would like to meet.  Email me at rhiannonfrater at gmail.com.

Next time I'm the West Coast, we'll have a proper book signing.

Thanks!

An Italian Review of THE FIRST DAYS

The Italian version of THE FIRST DAYS

I received a very nice email from Germana Maciocci recently. She translated THE FIRST DAYS into Italian for Delos Books, my Italian publisher in Italy. She asked me for an interview for the online magazine she writes for and listed a link to her blog where she had reviewed THE FIRST DAYS. She was also kind enough to provide a translation of her review and said I could post it here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!!

Texas, present day / the near future. Jenni and Katie's lives intersect one day by accident and they decide to escape together, fighting tirelessly for survival, while the world that until a few moments before had been familiar to them is suddenly overwhelmed by an invasion of ravenous undead. At a first trivial glance, it seems to be a terrifying but contained pestilence but it turns out to be, as the journey of two women proceed, a worldwide catastrophe, an atypical massacre where there are no victims in the usual sense of the term but zombies devouring the living, infecting them, creating more zombies, in an endless spiral of horror that cannot only be defined but more than creepy.
Like in Stephen King’s novels, to whom the author was, in my opinion, more than rightly compared, the reader faces the more traditional horror that starting and taking hold in daily routines, thus making it even more incomprehensible, but at the same time, paradoxically reasonable, profoundly human, and monstrously logical, breaking and spreading in the lives of the two protagonists and of the various characters crossing the two women during their desperate flight.

Jenni is a young housewife who has seen her husband and two young children transforming under her eyes, and herself she had risked to become a zombie. She has been planning to leave since a very long time, from a husband abusing her and who already made their family life a living hell. She is saved by a miracle by Katie, who gets by chance in front of Jenni’s house and sees her out the main door, still in her nightgown, while she stares under shock at her family trying to reach and devour her. This vision accompanies Jenni throughout the journey towards a possible salvation, dwelling in her heart like a worm, making her feel torn between the grief for the loss of her children and the profound sense of guilt arising from the relief the woman feels, for the first time in her life, feeling free and no longer burdened with an husband or a chauvinist and overbearing father. The instinct to go forward and to survive is strong in her, thanks to her hope to save from that awful fate at least her stepson, in a camping holiday on Texas’s mountains.

Despite her young age, Katie is a successful attorney, accustomed to think with her heart but at the same time with a logical and firm mind. Unlike Jenni, her family, especially her father, has always supported her, even when she had decided to marry a woman. And it is her beloved wife, one of the first victims of the infection, that terrible first day is assaulting Katie: her transformed image haunts the few hours of sleep that Katie is able to enjoy now, and the regret of not being able to protect and take her away with her. The background picture to her mobile, showing her wife as sweet and smiling, clashes with the memory of the monster that has tried to bite her, confirming further that, the total decline around her being not enough, her world is now at an end, and nothing will ever be like before. Jenni and her instinctively trust each other, with an instinctive empathy going beyond the emergency situation, and Katie’s protection brings Jenni to express a stronger and self confident side of her character, a side she did not even know she had, while the sweetness and the plain helpless appearance of Jenni consoles and encourages Katie to go ahead and to seek a way out, as it may seems impossible, from their apocalyptic situation.
During their escape, the two women cross their lives with many types of people react to tragedy in different ways. Some people surrender and give up to horror, if only because they cannot bear the loss of loved ones or because, now contaminated, consciously choose not to perpetuate the infection and decide to save their own kind, while they are still able choose. Others, like Jenni and Katie, although well aware of the danger and irrevocability of their present and future times, choose to fight and adapt themselves, as it is in the deepest nature average human beings.
And in this new world, in which every natural rule must be rewritten, the two women find refuge in a small community where people decided to barricade themselves in a sort of a makeshift fort, where they do not passively accept to be conquered by the living dead, but to fight for life and solidarity. The drama of the story written by Rhiannon Frater is also in her intelligent and accurate description of the other side of the coin of a situation in which a group of people is compelled to choose, in a circumscribed space, between what is good and what is bad in a scenario which already confuses ideas easily: Homo Homini Lupus.
Desperately looking for a balance between what things used to be and are now, Katie and Jenni are struggling with all their forces together with their new companions, trying not to kill permanently a world which now is completely out of joint, in a never-ending battle where dramatically one cannot see no winners nor losers - even humans who became zombies are just the victims of something or someone that in this book still has no name. As already written in the foreword to this review, this first volume of the saga of As the World Dies throws us without a parachute into a world which is unlikely but not impossible, considering for example all the experiments which are supposedly supported unofficially in laboratories of large world powers, and with outmost ability it invites us to read the subsequent volumes following the desire to see "how it will end," or rather, how it's going to start the new era narrated by Rhiannon Frater.

http://www.diariodipensieripersi.com/2011/10/recensione-il-primo-giorno-di-rhiannon.html

#Torchat with Me!!

‎#Torchat is happening tomorrow and I'm one of the three authors participating! Join me @rhiannonfrater, Joseph Nassise (@Jnassise), and Jonathan Case (@jonathan_case) and Tor moderator, Laura Fitzgerald (@Laura_FitzG) tomorrow at 4 – 5 PM EST.

Make sure to track the hashtag #torchat and follow the authors and moderator involved.  This is a really fun lineup and you can read more about it at the Tor/Forge Blog.

Read more about Joseph Nassie at his website.

Read more about Jonathan Case at his website.  

My Podcast Debut!

I'm so excited to have joined Evil Ed this season on his podcast to talk about THE WALKING DEAD.  I'm joining Scot Thomas from Zombie Apocalypse Preparation, Mark Dooley from Digital Chocolate, the company behind Zombie Lane, and Marque Cornblatt of Guns & Gardens in the co-hosting duties and so far it's a ton of fun.

Check out our premiere episode and leave us some zombie love on the official facebook page.

Review: THE WALKING DEAD Premiere

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed THE WALKING DEAD premiere tonight.  I absolutely loved it.  A lot of the things that had bothered me in the first season were absent in this episode and what I had liked in the first season was back in spades.





WHAT I LIKED

The Zombies
The zombies were amazingly well done just like they were in the first season.  Gruesome, terrifying,  and deadly, their mere appearance is enough to make me want to look for shelter and weapons.  Seriously, the zombies in this TV series are just the best zombies I have ever seen.  Tonight's "herd" was perfect.

The Characterization
I finally felt like I actually got to know the characters.  Last season they felt superficial and not well-drawn out except for a few that weren't mainstays of the series (Duane, Morgan, Jim).  There was a lot of exposition from the characters that never revealed who they really were.  In this episode, I finally felt connections to these characters.  A good example of this was Carol and Rick's prayers in the church.  This was a great way to peer into their souls.  Shane's conversation with Lori was also well done because it gave us a clear idea what is going on in both their minds about their situation.

Andrea was the best of the lot tonight.  She was so amazing in her confrontation with Dale.  I really liked how she stood up to him and called him on the B.S.  he was dishing her. The way she said "gratitude" sounded like a curse, which was just great acting.

I also liked how we got a glimpse of Dale's penchant for manipulating situations to get his way because he really does believe he knows best.  I'm curious to see how this plays out with Rick.

Plus, the women were treated like actual people and the sexism that plagued a few episodes in the first season wasn't present.

The Plot
The story line actually progressed in a way that made sense. No more tents, cans on strings, sitting around campfires talking about watches when in full view of downtown zombie-infested Atlanta.  This time around the survivors were being proactive and actually doing things that made sense: trying to make it to a safe place, scavenging for supplies, repairing vehicles, cleaning weapons.  Even Sofia getting lost felt like something that could really happen and opened up a great opportunity to explore group dynamics.

The Gore
Any zombie story is going to be gory.  It just has to be considering the dynamics of a zombie-infested world.  The gore on the show was so well done it made me squirm.

WHAT I DIDN'T CARE FOR


T-Dog and Glenn
Both of these characters were given very little to do in this episode.

T-Dog (I hate that name!  C'mon, give him a real name!) somehow managed to survive despite slicing through his artery when trying to escape the zombie herd.  As Evil Ed of THE WALKING DEAD Podcast said tonight while we were taping the new show, T-Dog is the clumsiest guy in the world.  He drops the keys in the first season and nearly kills himself in the second by being a klutz.

Glenn really didn't do a damn thing in the whole episode.  I barely remember him being in it.

So the sexism was absent in this episode, but so were the minority male characters sadly.

Zombie Rules
The zombie rules in the show continue to be inconsistent.  I noticed in the first season that the zombies couldn't climb ladders, but in the same episode could scale fences.  In one episode we were told that the zombies mostly came out at night. Yet all the following episodes had the zombies very active during the day until the last episode of season one when they went to the CDC when again zombies were not active during the day.  Last season the zombies ran, this season they shamble, sometimes very quickly.

Tonight, again, the zombies seemed to be either extremely fast, or very slow, super stupid, or scary smart.

They really need to make a zombie bible and stick to it.

FINAL THOUGHTS


I loved it.  I really did.  The show held my attention and had me jumping.

I'm definitely on board for the rest of the season.

Rhiannon Frater Joins Evil Ed's The Walking Dead Podcast & Fan Page as a Co-Host

"Rhiannon Frater, author of "...As the World Dies" Zombie Trilogy, will be joining the Cast of "Evil Ed's The Walking Dead Podcast & Fan Page!" Let's all give her a warm welcome! ...Thanks for joining us, Rhiannon!" ~Evil Ed on the Evil Ed's "THE WALKING DEAD" facebook fan page

With those words, I am officially part of the popular podcast that covers the AMC show THE WALKING DEAD.

Evil Ed had asked me to guest on the show a month or so back and we had a chance to chat this last week about all things zombie.  We had a blast just talking about THE WALKING DEAD show and webisodes and he was kind enough to ask me to make it a regular gig.

Therefore, every Sunday after the show airs, I will be joining Evil Ed and my other co-hosts to talk about the only zombie show (at this time) on TV.

For more information, click on the links below.


www.thewalkingdeadpodcast.com
www.thewalkingdead.mobi
www.facebook.com/thewalkingdeadpodcast

The Italian Cover of THE FIRST DAYS

I love it so much!!  What are your thoughts?

The article about the Italian version is here--in Italian.

Review: The Walking Dead Webisodes

I am often asked about THE WALKING DEAD by fans of the AS THE WORLD DIES Zombie Trilogy.  I suppose it makes sense since both works are about a group of people surviving the zombocalypse.  Though I had never read THE WALKING DEAD, when I heard about the TV show, I was very excited just like all the rest of the zombie fans.

I eagerly tuned in and was...disappointed.  Though I loved the zombie makeup, gore, and the setting, I found myself struggling to invest in the characters. Though Morgan and Duane captured my heart, they vanished from the show after the first episode.  Later, I rather enjoyed the gang in Atlanta, but they, too, were only on for one episode.  I did end up liking Glenn and Daryl enough that I worried about them dying.

But I didn't like the treatment of ALL the female characters on the show and most of the minorities.  When all the women did was the laundry, cooking, and screaming, I was ready to kick my TV.

BUT...that being said, I had high hopes for season two anyway.  The first season felt rushed and crippled by being only six short episodes.  I think it takes most TV shows around six episodes to usually find their footing (unless its LOST).  Some episodes were freaking awesome, while others somewhat bored me.  The trip to the CDC was incredibly annoying and boring (and I understand its not in the comics).

Yet, I was still so happy to see a TV show about zombies at last.

When I saw the link about the webisodes a few weeks ago, I watched all six in one sitting.  And I have to say right now that if the second season of THE WALKING DEAD is anything like the webisodes, I'm in heaven.


The webisodes are about the iconic "torso zombie" from the first episode of THE WALKING DEAD.  She was heavily featured in most of the promotion of the show (see the ad above as an example) and was probably one of the most graphic and disturbing of all the zombies.  In fact, the torso zombie was the one zombie that broke my heart.  By her appearance it was obvious to the viewer that something just terrible had happened to her.

And now we know...

Episode one "A New Day" opens with the introduction of Hannah as she awakens in her car after an accident.  Stunned, wounded, and terrified by the disappearance of her children, she rushes through an Atlanta neighborhood seeking them out.

Hannah in a still from the show.

Of course, the world has been turned upside down and she is quickly in danger from the walking dead roaming the streets.  Scenes of carnage are everywhere, from a birthday party gone terribly wrong to a mail carrier being eaten on the sidewalk, it is clear that the world has come to a bloody end.

The rest of the webisodes follow Hannah, her children, her ex-husband, and his wife through a terrible day of death and destruction.  No one is safe in the tale, and of course, Hannah's fate is already sealed.  Yet the show has plenty of thrills and chills despite the short length of each episode.

Though Hannah is going to die, her character is the strong female we did not see in the actual TV show.  She is a devoted mom who is determined to save her children no matter what it takes.  She is never shown as weak and is the most well-rounded character in the entire webisode series.

In the end, even Hannah's death is not because she is weak, but because she is strong.  I won't lie.  I cried.

So if this is what THE WALKING DEAD season two is going to be like, I'm more than a happy camper.

Check out the preview for THE WALKING DEAD Season Two.

How To Support Your Favorite Author

Over the last six years, I have personally witnessed the power of fans.  If not for their almost rabid support when I was writing AS THE WORLD DIES as an online serial, I may never have finished the story that would eventually lead to a three book deal with Tor.

If not for fans, I would not have won the Dead Letter award two years in a row.

If not for fans, I would not have had the sales that drew the attention of a producer from Hollywood.

If not for fans, I would not have reviews on Amazon.com and other online book sellers.

If not for fans, I would not have...more fans.

Fans are extremely important to any writer's career.  They wield the power to push you to greater heights -- like bestseller lists -- and better and bigger book deals.

The reality is that fans can enable a writer to keep writing and churning out books they will enjoy.  Though inspiration and dedication are a huge component to writing a book, any writer needs sales to keep them on the writing path.

Most writers have day jobs (either full-time or part-time), families, and social lives.  Writing is often something they do after everyone else is in bed, or early in the morning.  They struggle to carve out time to take hold of their inspiration and wrangle it into a cohesive story.  Most of the time, writers are not making one red cent off that writing. They're doing it because they love to write and are probably hoping it will lead to some monetary reward in the future.

I doubt there isn't a writer out there that dreams of writing full-time. But it is very hard to get to that point.  Hell, I'm trying to make my own full-time writing gig stick.

So here are some tips on how to keep your favorite writer(s) doing what you want them to do....write.

1.  Buy their books.

This seems like a logical way to support authors, but a lot of people don't realize how important sales really are.  On more than one occasion I have had someone tell me "I'll buy your book at Half-Priced Books when I find it"  or  "I'll get it from the library."  Though the initial sale DOES count toward an author's royalties, all second-hand sales and library loans do not.

If your favorite author is published through a major publishing house, sales will dictate whether or not that publishing house will buy the author's next project.

If your favorite author is an indie author, most likely the money they make off of self-publishing is going to fund their next self-published work. Cover art and editing are very expensive.

So when you buy a book (not second-hand), it really does help your favorite author.

Note:  I totally get buying second hand when you don't have the funds. I've done it myself.  Later on when I had money, I bought my favorite authors latest books at the bookstore.

2.  Write reviews (on goodreads, amazon.com, etc)
A lot of readers don't understand the power of their opinion to influence other readers to read their favorite author.  With so many books being published every week, people look to reviews by other readers to help them decide which book they should buy or avoid.  If you love a book, write a review.  Even if it is a short one, it does help out.

3.  Loan your books to friends.
You may think this contradicts #1, but it actually doesn't.  If you're trying to convert a friend to your favorite author, chances are they would rather read a borrowed book then risk spending money on an unknown author.  If they like the book you loaned them, maybe they'll buy a copy of their own, or later buy the author's latest work.

4.  Spread the word on your social media sites (or your blog!)
I was turned on to the JENNI POX series by J.L. Bryan when I saw the Bookish Brunette twittering about the books.  I read up the reviews on the series on goodreads and purchased the first book. I loved it!  I know I have gained new readers because they saw a fan talk about my books on facebook, twitter, or other media sites.  Blogging has also brought me a slew of new fans.

5.  Email your favorite author.
A short email to your favorite author really does help.  Writing is a lonely endeavor and hearing from fans about how much they like your work is very energizing.


So to sum up this post, if you want to keep your favorite author writing, buy their books, spread the word about them, and let the author know you appreciate them.

The Shreveport Zombie Walk is this Weekend!

This weekend I will be the guest of honor at the Shreveport Zombie Walk in Louisiana.  I'm so excited to see all the awesome zombies converging on downtown Shreveport to bring awareness to world hunger.  The shambling undead are always hungry, as you know.

If you're in the area, please join the zombie hordes this Saturday, October 8, 2011.  For full information on this event, please make sure to visit the official website.

The local Barnes & Noble bookstore will be selling copies of THE FIRST DAYS at the event.  Please come by their table and snag a copy.  I'll be signing books at the table next to them, so make sure to say hello.

Hope to see you there!

Images courtesy of the official site.

Guest Blog Post at The Unread Reader!!

Missie is a fan of PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES and she asked me to write a guest post for her blog The Unread Reader to celebrate Halloween.

In the post I talk about both my vampire series and why I chose to embrace the traditional vampire instead of opting for the new breed of vamp that has gained popularity with the advent of TWILIGHT.

Missie is also hosting a  giveaway of my vampire novels.

Check it out today and give Missie some Halloween love!

Reduced Price on THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE!

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE trade paperback is on sale for $9.32 on Amazon.com! This is a great deal!


Get your copy today!

Winners of the VAMPIRE BRIDE Giveaway!

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Entry #33ami blackwelder

Entry #633Richard Commander

Thank you so much for entering and keep an eye out for a new giveaway coming soon!