Title: Waking Up Dead (End of Days Love #1)
Author: Emma Short
Release Date: 22nd October 2013
Publisher: Entangled
Welcome to the
#entangledzombieinvasion release week competition, and a big thanks to Jo-Anne
for hosting me!
Just in time for
Halloween we’re celebrating the release of my debut novel, Waking up Dead, and
it’s all about the zombies… Of course where the undead roam a zombie slaying
kit is so needed, and do I have a fab one for you!
Axe: check
Flashlight: check
Super hunky guy to
fight the zombies with: not quite…
You can, however,
find that super hunky guy in-between the pages of Waking up Dead, and if you’d
like the get-your-slay-on kit too, or a signed copy of Waking up Dead, or even
a $25 Amazon gift card enter the competition below. You get extra points for tweeting and extra again
for heading over to Facebook and liking my author page.
Here’s a sneak
peek of Waking up Dead…
You know your life has hit rock bottom when you’re living
off cooked rats and showering once every few months—if you’re lucky. But for
Jackson Hart things are about to get a whole lot worse. When her best friend,
Tye, disappears hunting for food, kick-ass Jackson’s ‘head south to safety’
plan looks like it’s dead before it’s even begun. But then she meets
ex-mechanic Luke Granger, who takes her to his bunker, feeds her with non-rat
based food, and offers her protection against the zombie hordes—not that she
needs it. She knows how to use a machete and isn’t afraid to.
Jackson was tempted to stay in the city with her rescuer.
Food, shampoo and the possibility of finally getting laid, what more could she
ask for? But the flesh eaters are getting smarter and the bunker is
compromised, so Jackson and Luke have no choice but to make the journey south.
Luke and Jackson team up to find other humans in a
road-trip romance for the ages. They travel for thousands of miles with zombies
shadowing their every move. They must utilize every resource at their
disposal…and then some. On the way, they discover that even if flesh eating
zombies are knocking down their door, there’s always time for sex and even
love.
Excerpt:
Chicago
Without a doubt the house with the pretty green shutters had food inside
of it. Pasta, canned vegetables, tinned meats, hell, it could have a five
course, good-to-go, gourmet meal in there for all Jackson Hart knew. Crouched
down behind an overturned SUV she could practically hear it all screaming from
inside the pantry, and she narrowed her eyes as she assessed the best way to get
at it.
Not through the front door. It was probably barred tight with planks of
wood, or barricaded with piled-up furniture. Maybe through the back? But the
skinny, shadowed alleyway that ran between the house and its fence screamed, horror movie showdown, and for all Jackson knew she’d be risking it only to
find a blocked-up back door too. The shutters then. How thick were they? Was
the glass behind them intact? Jackson hefted Mandy-the-machete and considered
the possibilities.
“You’re looking thoughtful there. For the record it doesn’t suit you.”
Those words came from Tyrone, her friend, her only friend, if you wanted
to get right down to it. He joined her behind the SUV, swinging his ax as he
did so, and making absolutely no attempt to stay hidden.
“I was being stealthy,” Jackson said with a sigh. “You totally just
ruined it.”
“Stealthy for who?” he asked. “The rats? There’s only them and us. We
checked the street. It’s all quiet.”
Jackson frowned as she looked away from the house and down said street.
A backpack, probably a child’s by the size of it, caught her attention, and she
frowned as she noticed what looked like a rusty toy truck sticking out of the
zipper. The things people had thought to take when they tried to run…it still
baffled her.
“Quiet or not, they’re here somewhere,” she said softly. “It’s been
almost a day since we saw any of them.”
“Let’s hope for another day and then maybe another.” He paused. “Better
yet, let’s hope for a week.”
Jackson almost laughed. “Might as well wish for a working car.”
“I do, sweetheart. Daily. We’re surrounded by wheels and not one of them
worth a damn.”
“Two years and then some pretty much kills everything.”
“Everything but us,” Tye said.
Jackson nodded slowly at the truth of those words, tore her gaze away
from the truck, and pointed her machete at the shuttered house. “Enough with
the reminiscing. Take a look at that.”
Tye’s gaze followed the line of the blade. A frown spread across his
face as he assessed the building from top to bottom. “It looks…”
“Like it probably did two years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Weird isn’t it?” Jackson said. “I don’t know about your end, but down
there,” she tilted her head to the south of the street, “the rest of these
million-dollar houses are rocking the post apocalyptic- makeover vibe. Broken
glass, doors hanging off their frames, trash all over the place.”
“And this one stands alone,” Tye
said, his frown deepening. “Could be Obama’s. I heard he has a house around
here.”
“Had, had a house,”
Jackson said. “And I’m pretty sure the dead do not make dining distinctions
based on fame, or,” she added when Tye opened his mouth to speak, “government
office.”
“Unless he went rogue in the beginning. He could still be hanging
around.” Tye paused and shook his head. “That’s a weird thought.”
“Weird but not outside the realms of possibility,” Jackson said. “Hence
the stealth you just ruined. Something is off, and we can’t ignore it. If
there’s food anywhere, it’s hidden in that house. The rest have been picked
clean, and this one looks like it’s been protected.”
Tye shot her an incredulous look. “You’re seriously not suggesting there
are actual people inside?”
She snorted. “Yep, I’m betting there’s a whole family just waiting to
open their arms to us. They’ll have a meal all laid out, hot baths running—”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Jack.”
Jackson shook her head. “You goad me into it. Seriously though, I’m
thinking there were people
still living in there. Not for a while and not now,” she added, holding up her
free hand to halt whatever words Tye had been about to say, “but maybe they
lasted out longer than the rest of the street. It’d explain why things look
different. Better yet, it might mean food.”
Tye stomach gave a grumble. It was far louder than it should have been
and Jackson caught his eye. “Keep it down. That was loud enough for a pack to
hear.”
“Can’t help it,” he said. “You keep talking about food. When was the
last time we ate, for fuck’s sake? I still can’t believe the university campus
was picked clean.”
“It’s crazy,” Jackson agreed, thinking of all those dorm rooms they’d
crept through. Each had been viler than the last, full of blood and pus and a
million other unidentifiable fluids. Worse, they’d stunk of teen sweat, though
how that could be two and more years after those rooms had last been occupied,
Jackson didn’t know. “Took a brave person indeed to wander those rooms and
clean them out,” she added. “End of the day though, it doesn’t leave us much
choice but to hit up Creepyville here. We need some calories
in our system as soon as possible, and I’d rather not chow down on rat
again.”
“There’s nothing wrong with rat.”
“There’s so much wrong with it I can’t even begin.” She swung
Mandy in the direction of the biggest window, forcing Tye to lean back
to avoid the super-sharp blade. “I’m thinking we go through the shutters there.
We’ll chop through them and then the glass too if there’s any left.”
“That’ll make a bit of noise.”
“Less noise than trying to go
through the front door. You know it’ll probably be barricaded up, and besides,
didn’t you just say we were okay?”
“I said we are okay for the moment. Let’s not push our luck any more
than we have to.”
“So we’ll be quick.”
He hefted his ax, giving it a swing of what Jackson assumed was
agreement. “I’m always quick, sweetheart.”
“I bet.”
“You’re not funny.”
I'm thirty
something years old, live in combats and black tees, survive on a desperately
minimal amount of sleep, and have a tendency to shoot from the hip.
I loathe shopping,
unless it's for books, and spend most of my free time trying to get my teenage
children, Vix and Bear, to hang out with me. Mostly they don't, as you know,
they have stuff to do. What this stuff is I've yet to find out... so I write instead
and before long free time is no more.
I write in all
sorts of genres, though the vast majority of my work has a romance bubbling
within it (inspired by my real life hero, my husband, fondly referred to as
'The Greek'). Mostly I just write whatever takes my fancy and hope that
someone, somewhere, will want to buy it when it's finished!
All my books are
available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble,
All Romance ebooks, Bookstrand, Apple, Smashwords, Sony and Chapters/Indigo.
You can download to your Kindle, Kobo, Nook or iPad. You can also find some of
my books on Amazon.com in paperback format.
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