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Dahlia DeWinters - Author

Quirky Heroines, Happy Endings

Blogtoberfest – Zombies!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

October is the month of being scary, right? But I’m a romance author, so I found a way to combine the two. Loving Among the Dead is the answer that I found. A mix of erotic romance and scary zombie adventure, it’s sure to get your blood racing in one way or the other. Here’s a blurb.

A survivor of a zombie apocalypse that’s ripped her world apart….

Nothing in her graduate history courses prepared Judith Graham for the monotony of her existence in the weeks following a zombie apocalypse. Hiding from the rotted world in her makeshift fortress, she subsists on dehydrated food and lonely thought.

When she gives up and decides to satisfy her need for a break in routine, she crosses paths with Sky Beckett, a high school physics teacher making his way to his Southern childhood home. Several passionate encounters coupled with Sky’s assertion that things are only going to get worse not better, spark Judith’s doubts about the isolated life she’s chosen.

But can an ever-cautious Judith find the strength to leave the false security of her past behind to create a new future with Sky in an uncertain world?

Click the book cover below to purchase:
Please note, this is an erotic romance with a heat level of 4.

Here’s an excerpt:

Judith Graham buried her parents on a Sunday. After a brief prayer, she placed her mother’s favorite plant at the head of her grave, and her father’s pipe—still full of tobacco ashes—at the head of his.

She brushed the dirt from her jeans, tucked the work gloves in her back pocket, and sat on the back deck sipping from a can of warm soda, watching the sun set. There were no tears. Her mother’s pistol was at her side, the gunmetal gleaming in the fading orange light.

Would it have made a difference if she had gotten home sooner?

The letter, written on her mother’s heavy monogrammed stationery, had been propped on the mantel, addressed to “Judith” in even, no-nonsense script. A marked contrast to the pale lavender paper, the black words indicated her father brought home the infection. She shot him in the back of his head when he started making gurgling, groaning sounds at the static on the television. Then she dug their graves, dragged him into his, and shot herself.

Stay hidden. Don’t trust anyone. Her mother’s final words to her. Jude was alone.

Her brother was south, somewhere, Alabama, the last she’d heard. Marcus did what he wanted, when he wanted. She was the good daughter who minded what her parents told her.

It wasn’t so bad at first. Between the initial shock of her parents’ deaths, and making defensive alterations to the house, there was no time or energy to think or feel much of anything.

Once the house was safe, the dehydrated food, water bottles, and toiletries arranged in the first floor den, the camp shower with its battery pump working and the lanterns loaded, there was lots of time to be lonely. Rereading favorite novels, patrolling the inside of the house, and searching for elusive ham broadcasts on the shortwave radio only filled up so much time.

She stopped looking at family photos because they made her cry, leaving her exhausted and listless, lying on the bed or the sofa or the floor for hours until the urge to pee roused her enough to move.

Her neighborhood was deserted. No walking dead bodies roamed the streets. Either her neighbors had gotten out or had been zombified in the confines of their homes, unable to juice up the physical memory necessary to open a door and escape. For that she was grateful. She’d had to smash too many zombie heads on her way back home from Philadelphia for her to revisit it with people she once knew.


Filed Under: Blogtoberfest, Movies--Books--Music--Television, Uncategorized Tagged: blogtoberfest, erotic romance, horror, loving among the dead, romance, the walking dead, zombies

Blogtoberfest – Loving Among the Dead Playlist

loving-coverIt’s been a while since my first zombie novel, Loving Among the Dead was released through Loose Id. However, no matter how long ago I’ve written a book, the characters stay with me for quite a while. It takes a lot to get into a characters personality- how he or she walks, talks, behaves and reacts in certain situations, and this doesn’t go away very quickly.

With that in mind, I started looking through my Google playlists and found a list of songs I used to evoke moods with my two characters, Jude and Sky.

A little about the book: Jude is my female lead. When the zombie outbreak happened, she endured a scary journey from Philadelphia, where she was going to graduate school, back to Princeton (or thereabouts) where her parents’ lived. She’s a bit spoiled and a lot privileged, however, her parents were survivalists/hoarders, what have you, and they stocked their home with provisions and food, “just in case”. Though her parents are dead when she finally a makes it back home, she stays in her old boarded up home, the only person left alive in her neighborhood. It’s a lonely, scary existence, to be sure.

Then along comes Sky, traveling through solo on his way out of New Jersey to his home state of Tennessee. Before the apocalypse, he’d been a teacher in an urban district, having gone to college on a baseball scholarship.

The two meet in the stock room of a drugstore and Jude ends up allowing him to come stay with her. And as one would imagine, having been starved for human contact for many weeks, they cling together.

That’s the basic premise. The book continues with the push/pull of the relationship, where Sky wants to keep moving South, whereas Jude believes it’s safer to stay in one place.

All that being said, here’s a taste of their soundtrack. Some songs are hers, some are his, and some belong to them both. I’ve included a link to the playlist on YouTube, if you want a listen.

 

                     Jude Sky Both
Counting Cars – Snow Patrol Faster – Matt Nathanson Don’t You Forget about Me – Simple Minds
Time after Time – Cyndi Lauper Don’t Dream It’s Over  – Crowded House Follow you, Follow Me – Genesis
Invincible – Pat Benatar Wild Horses – The Rolling Stones Perhaps Love – John Denver
Like a Prayer – Madonna Melt with You – Modern English Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd
Nobody Does it Better – Carly Simon The Flame – Cheap Trick Never Surrender – Corey Hart
Head over Heels – Tears for Fears Sign Your Name – Terence Trent D’Arby Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
 A Matter of Trust – Billy Joel Hey, Jude – The Beatles Anthem for the Already Defeated – Rock Plaza Central


Filed Under: Blogtoberfest, Movies--Books--Music--Television Tagged: black girl geeks, black girl nerds, blogtoberfest, colors in darkness, dahlia dewinters, halloween, horror books, loving among the dead, zombie apocalypse, zombies

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