Today we have a special guest stop with author E. Van Lowe and his new book, The Zombie Always Knock Twice!
Thanks so much for stopping by and letting us get to know you and your book a little more!!
The
Zombie Always Knocks Twice
E. Van Lowe
Hollyweird #1
Genre:
YA Paranormal
Publisher: Imajin
Cover Artist: Ryan Doan
Kindle ebook:
978-1-926997-74-2
Trade paperback:
978-1-926997-81-0
Page Count: 177 pages
Book Description:
Hollywood California,
Swimming pools, movie stars… and now the risen dead
Hollywood can be a
difficult place to grow up, especially if you’re Kristine Golden, a
fifteen-year-old necromancer with a sworn duty to lay the risen dead
back to rest and no desire to be in the movie business.
When handsome deadie Alex
Romero swaggers into her life, Kris must keep her promise, despite
her growing feelings for him. If that’s not enough to give a girl
a headache, a murderous zombie comes knocking at Kris’ door,
rocking her world and threatening her family.
Can Kris solve the mystery
of the rampaging zombie before someone else winds up dead? Or will
the walking dead take over Hollywood and turn it into… Hollyweird?
About
the Author:
E.
Van Lowe is an author, television writer, screen-writer, playwright
and producer who has worked on such TV shows as "The Cosby
Show," "Even Stevens," and "Homeboys In Outer
Space." He has been nominated for both an Emmy and an Academy
Award. His first YA Paranormal novel, "Never Slow Dance With A
Zombie," was a selection of The Scholastic Book Club, and a
nominee for an American Library Association Award. His Best Selling
novels, “Boyfriend From Hell” and “Earth Angel,” are the
first two books in the Falling Angels Saga. “The Zombie Always
Knocks Twice” is the first book in his Hollyweird series.
E
lives in Beverly Hills California with his spouse, a werewolf,
several zombies and a fairy godmother who grants him wishes from
time-to-time.
@evanlowe
Short Excerpt:
The man coming up
the block toward us in the hooded sweatshirt stopped directly in our
path, about ten feet away. The hood dropped revealing his face. The
hair on the left side of his head had been shaved off revealing tiny
bits of bony white scalp. Huge staples held his crooked jaw in
place. There was a large indentation in his forehead from some sort
of blunt force impact. His left eye was covered with a milky, white
cataract, and the right drooped unnaturally into his cheek.
My breath caught
yet again. Standing before us was a zombie.
‘LEAVE US ALONE!”
the zombie screeched. Then he took off on a dead run and plowed into
Alex with the impact a freight train.
Just great, I
thought. Hollyweird—where the dead come out to play.
Zombies aren’t
what the movies make them out to be—slow moving, brain dead, brain
suckers. They’re the result of a raising gone bad. They can be
strong, and fast, and very dangerous. Also, a bite from a zombie
won’t make you a member of the living dead, although I’m sure it
must hurt like hell.
The one that plowed
into Alex was almost six feet tall and about seventeen years old. He
hit Alex with inhuman force, propelling him backward. They slammed
into a parked car that seemed to explode on impact. The twisting
metal and shattering glass sounded like a horrible automobile
accident. The car was totaled, and Alex was embedded into the
passenger side, like a toy soldier into a wad of Play Doh.
“Oh, God!” I
screamed.
Alex’s eyes were
closed. He wasn’t moving… but the zombie was. He peeled himself
away from Alex and the wreckage.
“Zombie!” I
called at the top of my lungs. “I command you to tell me who
raised you and what you are doing here.”
The zombie faced
me, a puzzled look on his distorted face. It dawned on me he hadn’t
known I was a necromancer until then—not that it made a difference.
He wasn’t bound to me so he didn’t have to answer my questions.
I was bluffing.
“LEAVE US ALONE!”
He screamed in response. He started for me and a wave of fear
rippled my gut.
“I command you to
stay back!” I called, but my voice was cracking, my words lacked
conviction. I took a few shaky steps backward. The zombie continued
toward me.
Just then the sound
of twisting metal snagged both our attention. Alex’s eyes were
open, and he was separating himself from the wreckage. He shed the
automobile with the ease of a snake shedding an old skin. He began
advancing on the zombie.
“What’s going
on down there?” We all looked up and saw three men, all Johnny
do-gooders, running up the block in our direction.
“Leave her
alone,” one of them called.
The zombie looked
from the advancing men to Alex and me.
“Hhhhh!” Hot
breath hissed angrily at us. Then he took off past us like a deer,
bounding up the block. By the time the men reached us he was nowhere
in sight.
“You ok?” one
of them asked.
“Yes. He…
attacked us?”
“What the heck
happened here?” Another of the men asked. He was staring at the
twisted pile of metal that used to be a Buick.
Before I could open
my mouth, Alex launched into an explanation. “My girl and I were
out for a stroll, and he was taking a sledge hammer to that car when
we happened upon him. Guess it was some kind of vendetta. And when
he saw us he decided to add us to the list.” The lie flowed from
his lips effortlessly.
“Hey, aren’t
you on that TV show?” the third man asked.
Alex smiled. “The
Beloved. Yes. You watch it?”
“No, but my
girlfriend does. She can’t get enough of you vampire guys.”
Any suspicions the
men may have had about our presence on the street or Alex molesting
me immediately vanished. Alex was a bona fide Hollywood star. I
guess they thought all stars were boy scouts. Where have they been?
Several minutes and
three autographs later the men were gone, and Alex and I were walking
back to the party.
“You told that
lie like you do it all the time,” I said.
“I’m a dead
person among the living. I do do it all the time.”
That wasn’t what
I was talking about, but I didn’t push it. He seemed annoyed. I
guess being attacked by a zombie wasn’t an everyday occurrence for
him either.
“If it makes you
feel any better, I memorized the car’s plate number. I’ll take
care of the damage,” he said, his words softening.
“Thanks. That
does make me feel better.” I wanted to hold my tongue, but I
couldn’t. “So, you have any enemies who’d want to send a
zombie after you?”
“I don’t have
any enemies. I’m a lover not a fighter.” The annoyance was
back.
“Maybe you loved
the wrong woman.”
“I’m dead. I
can’t love any woman,” he replied. The words were seething with
anger or pain. I couldn’t tell which.
“He said ‘leave
us alone.’ Who’s us?” I asked.
“I don’t know!”
He was getting
agitated again so I dropped the subject. But not without noting
there was more to Alex than he was telling me. A vindictive zombie
had been set loose in Hollywood. It was something I needed to look
into along with the deadie from the diner. My, my, I was suddenly a
very busy girl.
How
To Create Characters We Love To Hate
The
original
Dallas
series was a big hit on TV when I was young. The show’s protagonist
was also one of the show’s villains. J.R. Ewing, billed as the
man we love to hate.
It was that appellation that first got me thinking about creating
characters readers would both love and hate. J.K. Rowling did a
masterful turn at this in creating Severus
Snape.
Even his name told us to hate him, and yet there was something
alternately charming and redeeming about the man that over time drew
readers to him.
In
creating the Hollyweird
series I had this idea in mind. I wanted to create characters that we
may not like in the beginning (ala Snape) and yet in time, would grow
to love them, or at least understand them. In writing my first YA,
Never
Slow Dance With A Zombie,
I created a selfish protagonist in Margot Jean Johnson. I thought it
would be fun for readers to see how she justified her mean and
selfish actions before I set out to redeem her in the end. My editor
at Tor warned me that readers might have difficulty identifying with
Margot. But I wanted to write a flawed protagonist and did. While
that first book sold well, the reviews were mixed. A LOT of young
women hated Margot. Lesson learned.
I
always strive to create characters that ring true, that readers
actually come across in real life. Characters we might not like at
first glance, but we recognize as people we know. In writing The
Zombie Always Knocks Twice
I made sure the characters we will eventually love to hate were not
my protagonists. Anne Marie, Kris’ hateful older sister, and Talia
Multisanto, Kris’ adventuresome, boozing best friend who has a
knack for starting trouble, are peripheral characters in this first
book. Still, my very first review on Goodreads
had
this to say about Talia:
I
don't see how Kris and Talia could ever be best friends when they're
so different. And Talia is also a great piece of work, if I may add.
What with the drinking, venting on people, acts of revenge etc..
She's gotta drive Kris crazy one of these days.
The
reviewer hated Anne Marie even more. The good news for me, however,
is the reviewer still really liked the book. By making my protagonist
likeable, I didn’t hurt the reader’s perception of the book as a
good read. The lesson for all writers is while it is great fun to
create flawed, not very likable characters, when writing YA, we
should make sure our protagonists offset the other characters’
un-likability.
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