Title: Zombified
Author: Maggie LaCroix
Release Date: August 28 , 2014
Published by The Writers Coffee Shop
Genre: Fantasy/Urban, Romance/Paranormal
ISBN e-book: 978-1-61213-324-9
BLURB supplied by The Writers Coffee Shop
Monsters generally know their place:
vampires get to be sexy while zombies just decompose. But Maggie La Croix’s Zombified conjures up
an entirely different kind of undead raised by good old-fashioned Voodoo. These
gorgeous walking corpses don’t eat brain, they don’t stagger, and their bodies are spared the indignities of
putrefaction.
Take Henri Jolicoeur. More than one
hundred years after his death he is still a bewitching Adonis. But
zombification does have its downsides. Henri has a master, a powerful Voodoo
priest whose spells keep Henri, his teenage zombie sister, and five other poor
souls in perpetual servitude.
That is, until a hurricane devastates
their New Orleans home and the zombies are evacuated to the Texas border town
of El Paso. The curse is broken. They are free and intend to stay that way. But
how can they pass for human when they don’t eat or sleep and they’re reeling from black magic
withdrawal? If that isn’t enough, they have a traitor in their midst, their master is hot on
their trail, and a mysterious stranger in black is watching.
Enter Josie Cortez, a cowboy
boots-wearing reporter at the local newspaper who desperately needs a good
story to save her moribund career and get her editor off her back. One look at
Henri and his weird little family and she knows she’s struck journalism gold. But
strange things keep happening around Henri, things that remind Josie of her own
tragic family history with black magic, a history that cost her her beloved
mother and led Josie straight to the bottom of a bottle. Josie would rather
forget all about that. Forgetting Henri, however, is easier said than done,
even if falling for a man without a heartbeat could get her more than a broken
heart. It could get her zombified.
PURCHASE LINK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
& AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Maggie likes her leading women flawed and her science fiction sexy. She went to school for journalism and political science. She lives in the United States.
Did it take a long time to
get your first book published?
First, it took a
long time to write, way longer than I thought. An average of one chapter per
month. Then I found an agent in the most wonderful way possible. Agencies sometimes
put their unwanted requests in a folder in their conference room. A slush pile.
And sometimes, an agent looking for a project will go through the slush pile.
That’s what happened to Zombified! Then my wonderful agent found an equally wonderful
publisher, the Writers’ Coffee shop. Still, all said an done, the process took
more than three years.
Do you work another job as well as your writing work?
I definitely never
quit my day job! I would write whenever life gave me a break, after hours, early
in the morning, on vacation, etc… It’s difficult but it does motivate you to do
the best with what little time you have and commit some words to the page.
Do you have plans for a new book? Is this book part of a series?
I think my sexy
zombies have one or two more books to give, if the readers agree. Frankly, I
got attached to that motley band and I would hate to see them go so fast. There
are so many dynamics between them and I barely scratched the surface! There is
one in particular, Verner, the German bad boy, who clearly deserves a sex
scene! Plot-wise, there’s also a lot more to do. If I write more Zombified
books, I’m going to blow up that town!
Do you have a favourite character from your books? and why are
they your favourite?
I love my female lead, Josie Cortez, a small-town
journalist with a drinking problem. I know she is difficult and lost -weren’t
we all at some point?- but I love those characters. Don’t we love these
anti-heroes when they are men? I’m glad that we are starting to love the female
versions too!
How do you come up with
the Title and Cover Designs for your book/books?Who designed the Cover of your
books?
The title wasn’t
always Zombified. The working title was, believe it or not, Sexy Zombies. In
fact, I still have a big fat Manilla folder titled “Sexy Zombies.” But people
thought it was too literal. The cover, which is so gorgeous, is the work of
Thaigher Lillie, an amazingly talented artist who really captured the
steaminess of sexy zombies.
How do you come up with characters names and place names in your
books?
Picking your
characters’ names is like picking names for a child. Seriously, I looked
through lists of names from baby books and such! But the main characters’ names,
Henri and Josie, are the names of a friend’s dogs. It’s weird but those names
just felt so right!
Do you decide on character traits (ie shy, quiet, tomboy girl) before
writing the whole book or as you go along?
Characters are the
muscles of the story. The plot may be the bones, the structure that makes it
all stand together. But the characters are the muscles, propelling the book
forward. They need to behave consistently, otherwise it all falls apart. Once
you decide who they are, it’s fun to put them in harm’s way and find out how
they’d react. How do you decide who they are? I picked people I wanted to put
through a lot of harm!
Do you basic plot/plan for your book, before you actually begin
writing it out? Or do you let the writing flow and see where it
takes the story?
I definitely mapped
out the story with index cards, lots of them, and taped them to a wall to rearrange
as needed. But that plan changed drastically as my writing took shape. You have
to go where characters take you.
Have you ever suffered from a "writer's block"? What did
you do to get past the “block"?
There are definitely
some plot point that resist solving. What I do when I’m getting frustrated is
stop writing. Do something else. Go get iced coffee, talk to a friend, take a
shower. Your brain keeps working in the background and then, all of a sudden,
you find yourself in the shower, going, “Ah-ha!”
Are there any hidden messages or morals contained in your books?
(Morals as in like Aesops Fables type of "The moral of this story is..”)
I was always fascinated
with the subject of freedom and what it means in our everyday lives. My sexy
zombies were kept in slavery, sexual slavery, by the power of Voodoo magic for
a hundred years. They had an awareness of their situation but no power to
change it. Imagine how that must feel. And suddenly, they are free when a
Louisiana hurricane separates them from the Voodoo priest who is their master.
Imagine that. Being free, after so long. How would you handle it? That’s something
I think about a lot. How precious and difficult freedom is.
Which format of book do you prefer, ebook,hardback, or paperback?
I am not sentimental
about paper books at all. I am definitely a lover of ebooks. I always read a lot but
I read a ton since I’ve gotten my ebook reader in 2009. I love the idea that I
have access to so much knowledge and entertainment without cluttering my life.
At the end of the day, I carry those books in my mind, not on my shelves.
Are there any New Authors
you are interested in for us to watch out for? and Why should we watch out for
them?
I love Stacia Kane
and her Chess Putnam series. She is a genius at inventing dialect and using her
characters’ language as a window to their souls. I mean, after reading Unholy
Ghosts, I started talking like Terrible! She is also really funny and handy
with sex scenes in dark alleys (Oh, that Terrible!).
What piece of advice would
you give to a new writer?
Just start writing.
Don’t worry about finding an agent and a publisher. We live in a wonderful time
of blogs and social media and self-publishing. Your words will find a way out.
So just start writing.
AUTHOR LINKS
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