Welcome to the countdown to My Zombie Fiancé's release on July 13th!
For Day 7, I have a special treat for you—when you preorder My Zombie Fiancé from Torquere Press, not only do you get 15% off the ebook's price and a free copy of My Zombie Cat, you can also enter my preorder giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment with proof of purchase (a screenshot of your order number, for example) and you'll be entered to win a very special prize pack. It includes a Boo of your very own, a full-size ghost rubber ducky, and a My Zombie Fiancé swag bag stuffed with goodies.
If you're concerned about purchasing from Torquere rather than Amazon or another book distributor—Torquere's ebook files come with all ebook formats, including Kindle (mobi), and (some of you might not know this) usually more of your purchase amount goes to the author when you purchase directly from a publisher! Meaning the author has more money to spend on things like electricity to power their computer, so they can write more, so you can read more of their writing. It's a win for everybody!
This ducky and Boo plush are mine, but there are individuals just like them dying to go home with you!
Who says undead kitties can't be adorable? Not me, that's for sure!
There's a ducky with your name on it, just waiting to haunt your bathtub
Happy Holidays everyone! To celebrate, I've released a Christmas excerpt from My Zombie Boyfriend...and it's completely free!
In this excerpt from My Zombie Boyfriend, necromancer Edward Grey and Undead Canadian Kit Ward spend their first Christmas together. Exchanging gifts ranging from odd to adorable and having dinner with Edward's parents, they learn about life, love and the naming of cats.
With exactly one week to go until My Zombie Boyfriend's release, I thought I'd start introducing you to the characters!
First up are the cats, Winston and Boo.
It's funny, when I'm writing, how I won't realize the connections between things until much later. I didn't think of this until this morning, when I was planning this post. I was afraid of cats for most of my childhood, due to lack of exposure (my mom doesn't like animals) and a half-remembered incident involving a mother cat scratching me when I wanted to keep playing with her kittens. I now have two cats (well, a cat and an Eldritch Horrorpuss) and I love both of them very much. I hope that both my love and fear of cats comes across in My Zombie Boyfriend!
Phantom
Lee
(I like that this picture is grainy because it makes it look like a Bigfoot sighting or something...)
Boo is Edward's childhood cat, who Edward raised as a zombie when he died. Aside from being a zombie, Boo is everything that's frightening about cats--he's mean, destructive, he lurks in dark corners, and he would definitely eat your body if you died. Despite all of that, Edward loves Boo completely and defends him against anyone who's repulsed by him. Boo was inspired by the Siamese cat, Saki, my wife had when we met. My wife was the only person Saki loved...and she'd still drop pins on my wife's face while she slept. You can find inspiration for Boo on Pinterest!
Winston is the blue British Shorthair kitten Edward gives to Kit for Christmas. Winston is the opposite of Boo in every way. He's sweet and friendly and meets Kit at the door when he gets home. Winston also has a Pinterest board. Lee, pictured above, was supposed to be a Winston-cat. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a Boo-cat. (But we love her anyway <3)
It's about cats and zombies (and a zombie cat!) I know you're into those things, so naturally, I thought of you! I'll leave you two alone to get to know each other.
So, I've been sitting on this HUGE piece of news since the 7th and I couldn't wait to tell you guys, but I wanted to wait until it was finalized. And as of today--I just signed the contract for my first full-length novel, and it's going to be released as a paperback!
I do mean this is my first novel--I've written longer pieces, but all of them were fanfiction (or about historical people, not original characters, and I don't want to talk about that XD).
I don't want to give away too much this early in the game, but I can tell you that it's M/M (of course).
The story is told by Edward, a medical student/necromancer who finds a body in a park and brings it home...and back to life.
This story has been in my life for years, almost as long as I've known my wife, and I'm thrilled that I can finally share it with the world. It was originally supposed to be a webcomic that I wrote and my wife illustrated, but it never got past the first few pages. We also roleplayed it, and we've spent a lot of time exploring this world. I had a lot of material and ideas to draw upon. (I'd like to note that I offered my wife co-author status and she refused).
December of 2012, the story wanted out. I wrote most of it longhand, and the words just kept coming and coming until I had a novel.
I heard about the ABNA awards, and decided to enter MZB (I call it MZB. You can, too), mostly to give myself some sort of deadline.
Amazingly, even though the novel was very fresh and hardly edited, the concept got it past the first round. It didn't make it through the second, but it really wasn't ready.
I waited and got busy with other projects, giving it the time and space it needed, until it was ready to be edited. I knew I wanted it to be a paperback, but while it had been percolating, Torquere had raised their minimum word count from 50,000 to 60,000 words...so I had to add a few scenes, and beef others up a little. I ended up adding a character who was new to the novel, but not to the MZB universe, and I'm glad I did. I've gotten positive feedback about him already.
I would like to give a huge thank you to Jordan White for being my beta reader and her lovely and entertaining comments. Please check out her blog.
I would also like to thank my lovely editor, Elizabeth Brooks, for reading the first chapter and demanding more!
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Look for My Zombie Boyfriend from Torquere Press.
I've already started collecting giveaway items for the release day party and I'm so excited to share them with you!
I don't have a release date yet, but updates will be posted here, so stay tuned.
I plan to come as close as humanly possible to dissolving in the water. And sweating all the cupcake out of my pores.
My current mission: to relocate/hide as many things the cats can destroy, puke or poop on for retaliation. A side benefit of this mission is that it's a lot like cleaning up!
As I finished up the packing, and I thought, "Whoops, I didn't pack any kinky things!" Because my wife's coworkers, who we're sharing the hotel room with, would totally appreciate that. *facepalm*
If I hurry up, I might even get in a few minutes of writing...though at this point it may be too late.
Today’s anecdote:
We have no idea why, but whenever my wife does any percussion play on me, our girl cat has to yowl at us after each strike…(Our boy cat is very protective of me. For the first few months after we got him, whenever my wife and I would play, he would stare at us very intently, like, “Is she hurting you? I can call 911. Just give me a signal.”)
If you're concerned about purchasing from Torquere rather than Amazon or another book distributor—Torquere's ebook files come with all ebook formats, including Kindle (mobi), and (some of you might not know this) usually more of your purchase amount goes to the author when you purchase directly from a publisher! Meaning the author has more money to spend on things like electricity to power their computer, so they can write more, so you can read more of their writing. It's a win for everybody!
