Author: Rhiannon Frater
Series: As The World Dies
Number in Series: 3
Release Date: April 30, 2013
Synopsis from Rhiannon Frater
Siege is the conclusion to Rhiannon Frater’s As the World Dies trilogy, which should appeal to fans of The Walking Dead. Both The First Days and Fighting to Survive won the Dead Letter Award from Mail Order Zombie. The First Days was named one of the Best Zombie Books of the Decade by the Harrisburg Book Examiner.
The zombie illness has shattered civilization. The survivors who have found tenuous safety in Texas defend their fort against the walking dead and living bandits.
Katie has made peace with the death of her wife and is pregnant and married to Travis, who has been elected Mayor. Jenni, her stepson, Jason; and Juan—Travis’s righthand man—are a happy family, though Jenni suffers from PTSD. Both women are deadly zombie killers. In Siege, the people of Ashley Oaks are stunned to discover that the vice president of the United States is alive and commanding the remnants of the US military. What’s left of the US government has plans for this group of determined survivors.
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Let
Me Frighten You
By
Rhiannon
Frater
I
am inspired and intrigued by what frightens me. Writing about what I
fear compels me to step outside my comfort zone and forces me to
confront issues and themes that are not always easy to discuss.
Creating an imaginary world where terrible things happen to fictional
characters is an easier (and safer) way to deal with issues we must
all face at some time in our lives such as loss of loved ones,
overcoming adversity, and evolving in the face of hardship. But it
also allows me as a writer to also delve into much more frightening
and rare occurrences such as war, natural disasters, and apocalyptic
scenarios.
When
I sat down to write the AS THE WORLD DIES zombie trilogy, I wanted to
address the zombie apocalypse in a realistic manner. Though the
scenario of the dead wandering the earth and eating the living is
highly unrealistic, I wanted the characters of the story to be
everyday people who somehow manage to live past the first terrifying
days of the plague. I didn’t want any Rambos or Ripleys in the
mix. I wanted people who would resemble me and the reader.
Within
each character in AS THE WORLD DIES there is familiarity. The
characters are people we know or maybe even aspect of ourselves. They
all have different strengths and weaknesses, personality flaws, and
issues to overcome. Because I wanted my characters to be everyday
folks, their reactions to their terrible circumstances are grounded
in reality.
For
example, Jenni is a battered housewife/trophy wife at the beginning
of the first book in the trilogy, THE FIRST DAYS. After the
devastating death of her children, Jenni is rescued by Katie. At
first she is in shock, but slowly evolves throughout the series into
a much stronger (yet not always stable) person. To make Jenni
realistic, I drew on the coping mechanisms victims in abusive
situations develop. The mind is amazing in its capacity to adapt to
dire circumstances in order to ensure survival. Jenni’s ability to
basically cut off her emotions and compartmentalize allows her to
survive better than people who have yet to develop these coping
skills. Also, Jenni is extremely used to living in a life-threatening
situation on a daily basis, so the zombocalypse is not much different
in some respects. Though sometimes readers get mad at Jenni for her
immaturity (she was married at 17 and isolated from the world by her
husband) and her bizarre actions, she remains one of the most
popular, if not the most popular, character in the series.
Oftentimes
readers of the series tell me how the characters in the book feel
like friends. They worry about them, fear for them, and sometimes
mourn them. I have also been told how readers feel so attached to
the world and the characters they feel like they are in the action.
I contribute this to the fact that they characters feel like people
we know in our everyday lives, it is easy to slip into the dangerous
world of AS THE WORLD DIES with them.
Though
I love superheroes and magical/supernatural characters, in the end
they are far removed from me with their abilities. I know I can’t
do the things they can do. But I can easily imagine myself on a
rescue run with Jenni and Katie, clutching a gun, sweating with
anxiety, and feeling sick to my stomach with fear. Somehow this
translates to the reader as well. I’ve heard so many stories of
people having to put the book aside so their wildly beating heart
could calm down. Honestly, I’ve stopped typing for the same reason.
There
is a certain magic that sometimes happens in books that is hard for
the author to explain to the reader, but after a lot of thought I do
believe the reason why my books can be so terrifying is because the
characters are not so far removed from you and me.
So
when a zombie is moving relentlessly toward a character in SIEGE, the
fast beating of your heart and the tremor of fear flitting through
your mind is probably because you could be character facing
uncertain outcome.
Now
the question is…do you survive?
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Rhiannon Frater Bio
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies trilogy (The First Days, Fighting to Survive, Siege,) and the author of three other books: the vampire novels Pretty When She Dies and The Tale of the Vampire Bride and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. Inspired to independently produce her work from the urging of her fans, she published The First Days in late 2008 and quickly gathered a cult following. She won the Dead Letter Award back-to-back for both The First Days and Fighting to Survive, the former of which the Harrisburg Book Examiner called ‘one of the best zombie books of the decade.’ Rhiannon is currently represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry + Literary Media agency. You may contact her by sending an email to rhiannonfrater@gmail.com.
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GIVEAWAY TIME!!!
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