Book Tour: Dead Girl: A Romantic Zombie Tale of Revenge By Stavros

Dead Girl: A Romantic Zombie Tale of Revenge
Written by Stavros
Illustrated by Charles Hearn

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Publisher: Crazy Duck Press (CDP)
Date of Publication: August 2011
ISBN: 9780982812198

Number of pages: 266

Cover Artist and Illustrator: Charles Hearn

Book Trailer

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Book Description:

"…Death was a dream of sleep where the eternally dying dream the sleep of death. The undeniable evidence in the stillness of her being, the stark paleness of her complexion, and the lack of blood pooling from her cuts after climbing through the window whispered dark truths in her ears. Rigor Mortis. There was nothing familiar to Jamie about her skin. Time and time again, she found herself asking what had happened, only to arrive at the hard won conclusion that she, Jamie Lund, wasn't alive anymore. Somehow in the foolhardy night, she'd been a dumb girl. She'd gotten herself killed…"

From the mind of Stavros, the critically acclaimed author of Blood Junky, comes a new twisted tale of horror and adventure. An average girl, living in the city is murdered. Nothing new, right? It happens every day. Just another statistic. That is…until she woke up dead.

Trapped within her own decaying shell, the dead girl struggles to piece together the awful events of her untimely death and hunt down the man responsible. Armed only with a kiss from an ancient Egyptian God, a pockmarked memory, her ex-boyfriend, and a murder of crows Jamie Lund comes face to face with something more terrifying and real than mere death…she suffers the agony of being undead!

With twelve black & white illustrations and a full colored cover from tattoo artist, Charles Hearn, this sardonic tale comes alive like no other zombie story, popping from the page with stunning, unnatural brilliance. Dead Girl: A Romantic Zombie Tale of Revenge will keep the reader on the edge of their seat suspended in this unique supernatural thriller.

Praise for Dead Girl: A Romantic Zombie Tale of Revenge…

"A Bittersweet punch with a suspenseful plot and somber romance, showing us the vulnerable perspective of death from the other side. Definitely, not to be missed!" -Tara Lindsey Hall; Writer/Editor

"I couldn't put it down. I loved it. You are a great writer. Can't wait to read the next one." -Bethany Tanner-Evanko, a Facebook Post

"Just wanted you to know…I was about to wrap Dead Girl in festive Christmas paper but decided to read the first page...now I'm on page 88 and I'm keeping the book...and I'm not going to bed anytime soon." -Sabrina Buckman, a Facebook Post on Dec 21, 2011

"WOW! Holy shit…Thank you for this. Thank you for bringing forth a story that more than restores my faith in a type that has gnawed at my entrails for over a decade. It was different, it was refreshing, it was a damn awesome break from the "same old, same old" crap this genre is filled with. It's so hard to find an original zombie tale any more. And even harder to find someone who can make an old story their own in some personal way. But this? Definitely not the same old crap." -C. Dulaney, author of the Roads Less Traveled series

"OMZG! (Oh My Zombie Goodness) I absolutely Loved this book. Dead Girl is not the conventional zombie book, but a great one! It's a book of mystery and revenge with Egyptian influence felt within the pages. Plus the actual attention to detail of rigor mortis and decomposition of the body is spot on and a great additive to the book. I love this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good revenge tale. Plus I couldn't put the book down!" -Sunshine Rose, Chicago, ILL. April 2013

Excerpt:

I.

Jamie didn't hear the splash when her body hit the water. She didn't feel the cold grip of swirling liquid engulf her or lift her back up to the surface minutes later. She never noticed a murder of crows perched on the railings of the dilapidated concrete bridge. Or the way moonlight reflected off their coal black wings, shimmered in the rippling river and her wet hair. Jamie didn't see, feel, or hear much of anything anymore. Because at twenty-two… Jamie Lund was dead.

The water carried her like a baby and birthed her to the grassy bank on the other side of the bridge. A branch grabbed the black mini-skirt that she had worn that night and held it against the tug. A thousand ebon eyes watched her body drift and moor like a boat. A cold wind bent the tall grass on the river's edge and filled the night with wings. Against the churning bubble and the damp lights of the city in the distance, a cacophony of beaks erupted. Caws like locusts fell from the sky.

As if struck by a hammer to the chest, breath fueled Jamie's lungs. An awakening gasp burst through icy, cold lips and teeth that were filled with muddy leaves and liquid. Jamie's back arched and her head rose from the water with a jolt. Her eyes were milky white and distant. She sucked in a gulp of air with the grate of a straw searching for that last drop of soda under the ice; raspy like thorns - broken as the wind in the hollow of a tree. Her arms pushed up and drove her hands deep into riverbank mud. The chips and cracks in her red- polished nails were covered with dirt. Crows swarmed above her as a single mood. She coughed the river from her throat and pulled her shaking body from the frigid wet.

Ebon eyes glared at the wretched girl from the sky, from the trees, and their concrete perch on the dilapidated bridge as she struggled with stiff limbs to drag her sore and aching body through the tall weeds to the road. Jamie sat at the edge of the busted tarmac and looked around as her vision slowly tuned into her surroundings. The moon smiled down on her, a faint yellow, illuminating a patch of earth that she had never been to before. Nothing was familiar. Everything felt wrong. Fog peeled back from her memory like Russian nesting dolls, opening into themselves, getting smaller and smaller with the same effect, revealing nothing. She didn't know how or why she was here. Worry blossomed inside her chest like a fruit basket.

She tried to call out. To simply speak, to utter a sound, to work her feeble voice, but her throat burned hot nails all the way down her windpipe. A tiny squeak parted from her icy blue lips and she placed a hand to her throat. It was fraught with pain. She struggled. She worked her jaw to loosen her voice box, wind the organ up to play, but a flash of memory slammed into the back of her skull. It shook her shoulders awake, repeating on a loop. Scorching Jamie's cerebral cortex, her eyelids fluttered.

She was looking at herself in a freestanding mirror - getting dressed. A column of jet-black hair fell past bare shoulders, framing her pretty face. She had a lithe, curvy shape, sensual lips, and thin fingers that pulled the zipper of her skirt up the side of her hip. She turned the cute little black number around so that the fastener was in the back. She straightened her black lace bra, smiled, and then did her make up. She was going out...

But, where?

Suddenly, Jamie felt wet and shivered. Fear crept past her damp clothes and crawled under her skin as she lifted herself onto the road. Every muscle rebelled. Her knees argued at the thought of bending. The joints in her fingers and elbows ached, popping with movement. Her back felt as if someone had surgically implanted a slab of concrete, and a blinding pain ran from her neck down her spine. Her shoes were missing, toes numb, the sides of her feet scrapped along the busted edge of the tarmac as she rose crooked and wobbly onto two weak legs. It was a horrible dream, unspooling limbs for the audience of the blackbirds. Nothing was clear, nothing was familiar. A dull ringing filled Jamie's ears and she felt cold. Bitter and deep, that sprang from her center. Jamie Lund felt the cold that no one ever feels but which we're all made to visit. Somewhere vaguely in the coils of her mind the little lost dead girl was reminded that it was July. Its not supposed to be this cold out! Slowly, Jamie wrapped her arms across her chest and lumbered toward the distant lights of the city.

My Review:

I was given a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.

Jamie Lund wakes up in the water without any memory of how she ended up there. She pulls herself up and out of the water wondering how she got there. She has no clue what to do but she heads back to her home. Upon arriving at her home Jamie can't enter her apartment she comes to the realization that her purse is missing which has her keys in it along with her cell phone. She is thinking now this is just great her keys are gone as well as her phone so she can't call anyone for help and to top it all off she now has no ID. Jamie breaks into her own home and decides she needs a shower. After taking her shower Jamie looks in the mirror and wonders who it was that was staring back at her. Is that her in the mirror? Is that what she looks like now? Jamie checks herself out and has flash back to what has happened to her and is shocked to learn that she is dead. Jamie doesn't remember who killed her or how she ended up in the water but she aims to find out if it is the last thing on earth she does.

Jamie goes to her ex-boyfriend and asks him for help. She asks him to help her find out who killed her. Billy, Jamie's ex-boyfriend is a very nice and sweet guy who would do anything for Jamie. Billy has not been dating anyone since Jamie broke up with him six months ago he is still in love with Jamie. So Billy and Jamie go on a long road hunting down her killer. Jamie and Billy both get their selves into alot of different messes along the way. Billy has got the police on him thinking he is the one who killed Jamie. While they are trying to find her killed they both at the same time are having to stay one step a head of the law to keep Billy from being arrested and prove that he did not kill Jamie.

Jamie is upset because she has gone and got herself killed. She thinks that if she had never left Billy she would still probably be alive. She realizes that she is still in love with Billy and that she never stopped loving him. Billy and Jamie have been in love with each other since high school. Jamie figures out why she left Billy in the first place. She finds out that she actually left him for different reasons than she thought at the time. Will Jamie find out who killed her? Will she get the revenge that she wants and thinks she deserves? Will Billy get framed for her death? Will Billy and Jamie live happily ever after? Can someone who is alive and someone who is undead have a relationship?

Dead Girl was not what I was expecting in a zombie book and I have read a lot of zombie books. Jamie doesn't go around saying "brains, brains, brains". No she can talk just as well as any person who is still alive. I really loved Dead Girl even though it is not like any other walking dead book. I think that is what made it so interesting. Once I picked it up I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to find out what happened to Jamie, well I was going to say just as much as she did but I don't think that could be possible since I have never been there. But you did feel like you were right there beside her trying to help her find her killer. Dead Girl is so cool in that it makes you think or wonder what a dead person may think or feel. If you have not read Dead Girl then I suggest that you give it a try if you have read and like zombie books and even if you have not read them before. If you have not read a zombie book before then Dead Girl would be a great beginning.

About the Author:

Notorious Poet. Fool. Born in Washington DC. Stavros was a writer and editor for The Independent Underground Magazine. Raised in Southern Maryland, he fled the Chesapeake Bay to the wilds of the New Mexican desert. He is a single father of two, whose poetic works have been published in several online and print publications, including Central Avenue, The Sword That Cuts Through Stone, Poets Against The War, Conceptions Southwest, The Mynd, Imagine: Creative Arts Journal, and Bartleby, where he won a specialty award for his poem, Blackbird.

In 1999, he won an Official Selection into the Writer's on the Edge Festival for his play, The Redline. In 2001, he created the Poetry Television Project for public cable access in Albuquerque, NM. All eight volumes of Ptv's ground-breaking show were broadcast to over 100,000 viewers on a network of regional PAC channels throughout the Southwest and Baltimore. He helped to launch Unpublished Magazine, sponsored the monthly poetry series, The Word Café, in the Duke city, and produced a political compilation, Poetic Democracy. In 2007, he released the award-winning documentary film, Committing Poetry in Times of War.

In 2010, he launched the production management company, Organic Ghetto, and released its first imprint, Crazy Duck Press, with his first novel, Blood Junky. Blood Junky received exceptional praise and review, even being called "one of the best vampire novels ever written," by Living Dead Media. The following year he helped to launch BioGamer Girl, undertook a bigger East coast tour where he began selling his original photographic art, and released two new novels through Crazy Duck Press. Dead Girl: A Romantic Zombie Tale of Revenge features a stunning full-color cover and twelve black and white illustrations from tattoo artist, Charles Hearn. Blood Junky's sequel, Love in Vein, cemented the One Blood series with its continuation of the story, garnering such review as to claim that the book and the series is "comparable with, and at times surpasses, the 'Vampire Chronicles' by Anne Rice."

In 2012, Stavros joined forces with the Vampire Professor, Bertena Varney, M.A.M.Ed, to co-create the nonfiction annual anthology, Vampire News, and officially became a Fangsmith with the creation of Organic Ghetto's second imprint, Kaos Kustom Fangs. He rounded out the year by writing and editing screenplays for the One Blood Transmedia Project, recording Dead Girl as an audio book, and undertaking his biggest national marketing campaign, The Book & Fang Tour.

In 2013, he and the Vampire Professor released the second volume of Vampire News: The (not so) End Times Edition and is currently working on writing and growing his imprints. Stavros is also a musician who has scored commercials, film shorts, documentaries, and television programs.

Stavros FB Page | Author Blog | Kaos Kustom Fangs | Dead Girl CDP Page | Dead Girl FB Page | CDP eShop | CDP Twitter | Stavros Twitter

Giveaway:

1 grand prize pack containing t-shirt, sticker, art print, button and book
1 prize pack containing a button and t-shirt
1 prize pack containing an art print and button
10 ebook copies of Dead Girl

Author’s choice of designs for items in prize packs-Physical prizes open to US Shipping

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