Returning to the World of the Living Dead Boy
By Rhiannon Frater
As I traveled around the convention circuit to promote my adult zombie series, As The World Dies, I was often asked at conventions if I had any zombie books for younger readers. The disappointment on the faces of the parents and their children inspired me to consider writing a book that would be geared toward zombie-crazy kids.
Adding to the pressure was my own nieces and nephews. They hounded me to write a zombie book where kids their ages were the heroes. The youngest was especially upset that there weren’t any zombie books or shows for her age group. When she was five, she wept piteously because my brother wouldn’t let her watch the series premiere of The Walking Dead.
I have many fond memories of playing monsters versus kids games with my brothers and friends until the sun went down and we were forced to go home for dinner. I loved Monster Squad and The Goonies when I was growing up, and I decided that was the type of book I wanted to write. There’s something keenly entertaining about kids outsmarting zombies, vampires, or invading aliens.
Though I wrote The Living Dead Boy for kids like my zombie-crazed nieces and nephews, I soon realized the book was beloved by readers of all ages. I received emails from parents telling me how much they loved the book. They shared stories about them reading it aloud to their kids for family time, or on vacations. Teachers reached out to me to tell me that they’d bought multiple books for their classrooms only to watch them disappear one by one as students sneaked them home. One woman told me how she read the book to her son while he was in the recovery room after surgery only to upset the little boy in the other bed because his mother was listening to the tale and not paying attention to him. The one thing I noticed about all these stories was how much the adults also loved the book.
The Living Dead Boy was a solid seller at conventions and zombie walks with kids, but it wasn’t reaching the adult readership that I suspected would enjoy it. When the rights reverted to me, I ordered a new, darker cover and self-published the novel.
Soon, I was receiving messages from adult readers thanking me for taking them back to their childhood days, and awakening fond memories of their treehouses and backyard forts. They also confessed to a few tears when not all the children survived the story, and feeling chills at some of the events.
But there was one question I was definitely not prepared to answer.
When is the next one coming out?
When I polled my readers online, a sequel to The Living Dead Boy was the second most requested book behind another As The World Dies novel.
I had planned the book as a standalone, yet my twelve-year-old protagonist, Josh, and his friends were still lingering in my mind. I often I’d caught myself wondering what came next for them in the zombie-infested world.
Eventually, those thoughts became an actual plotline, and before I knew it I had at least two more stories to write in the world of The Living Dead Boy. Lost in Texas takes place hours after the first novel ends, and deals with the aftermath of the events of that tale. In the zombie apocalypse nothing is easy, and Josh and his friends aren’t too sure they should be trusting adults to get them to safety. Of course something goes terribly wrong, because with zombies something always goes wrong!
I’m excited to jump back into the world of Josh and the Zombie Hunters, and experience the apocalypse through the eyes of kids educated on zombie media. Josh’s online name was livingdeadboy after all.
Release Date
October 25, 2016
Author Biography
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor) as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog). She was born and raised in Texas where she currently resides with her husband and furry children (a.k.a pets). She loves scary movies, sci-fi and horror shows, playing video games, cooking, dyeing her hair weird colors, and shopping for Betsey Johnson purses and shoes. She’s the co-host of the ZCast, a Z Nation Fan Podcast.
Novel Synopsis
In the zombie apocalypse, no one is safe. Not even children. That’s what twelve-year-old Josh and his friends in the Zombie Hunters Club discovered when the undead invaded their school in The Living Dead Boy.
Now, Josh and the remaining Zombie Hunters are stuck on a city bus traveling across zombie-infested Texas. With fires burning on the horizon, mass evacuations underway, zombies roaming the countryside, and in-fighting among the adults on the bus creating tension, Josh has never felt so helpless. Despite his father’s insistence that the adults can handle the situation, Josh knows far too well from watching zombie movies that one person can put everyone else at risk. To his absolute horror, he’s right and he and his friends are running for their lives.
Josh may have always considered himself a zombie hunter, but now he’ll have to prove it to escape the ravenous undead and lead his friends to safety.
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32467702-lost-in-texas
Pre-Order Links
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/670378
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2dR7PYU
Author Links
Website: rhiannonfrater.com
Twitter: twitter.com/rhiannonfrater
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rhiannon.frater
