{Book Blitz + GIVEAWAY!!!} Day Zero by Summer Lane ~ Love YA Books

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Elle is a survivor. Since the collapse of modern society, she's been living in the remains of downtown Hollywood, California, foraging for food and fighting for her life.

And then everything changes.

After she is forced out of her home, she heads north. What she finds is a group of bunker survivors, unlikely comrades, and the hope of a safe haven. Together, they journey toward the dregs of civilization, facing starvation, imprisonment and death.

They are alone, but they are ready.

Day Zero begins today.

Day Zero is a novella, the first installment in The Zero Trilogy, a novella series complementing the international bestselling Collapse Series.

And now a word from the author...

Why Post-Apocalyptic Fiction?

Many people ask me how I got started writing post-apocalyptic and survivalist fiction. The answer is that it found me. I have always loved survival and adventure stories – the more exciting, the better. I began writing my first post-apocalyptic story in high school, but I didn’t consider publishing a survival story until well after I had graduated. It occurred to me that people might ask themselves the same question as me: What would happen if the electricity went out permanently? What would happen if there were no cars, no food and no water? What if we were invaded by a shadow army and forced to defend ourselves?

These are all food-for-thought questions, and I got to play around with a lot of possible survival scenarios and conspiracy theories while building my story worlds. The more I wrote post-apocalyptic books, the more fascinated I became with the ideas, and the more I had to continue to write. I love the complete vulnerability that characters have when you remove them from their element of comfort on an entirely new level. Electricity? Cars? Cellphones? Computers? Running water? Get rid of all of it. It really strips characters’ humanity down and challenges their moral compass. Who will survive? Who will die? Who will learn to love and who will fall into the trap of hatred?

I love post-apocalyptic fiction because everyone can identify with the premise of what if? Day Zero fits into that niche perfectly!

Writing about Post-Apocalyptic Hollywood and Santa Monica

Writers of post-apocalyptic fiction have the interesting task of taking the world in which we live and transforming it into an entirely different reality. For Day Zero, I chose Hollywood and Santa Monica, California, as the primary setting for my novella. Why those two cities? For one, I’m very familiar with them. I’ve spent a lot of time in southern California, visiting the Walk of Fame and Santa Monica Boulevard. It’s always best to base fiction on the legs of reality, so I went with what I knew.

I also recall asking myself the question, What would happen if Hollywood became uninhabitable? It’s interesting to think about the city without the glitz and glamour, with only the threads of civilization hanging on. I researched and visited famous places like Wilshire Boulevard, the Santa Monica Pier and Millions of Milkshakes on Santa Monica Boulevard. I believe grounding a story in something that exists makes it relatable to the reader – and fun for the author!

Summer Lane is the author of the international bestselling Collapse Series, which includes State of Emergency, State of Chaos, State of Rebellion and State of Pursuit. The fifth installment, State of Alliance, is releasing January 2015. Summer is also the author of The Zero Trilogy and an upcoming survivalist/science fantasy series coming in 2015. She owns WB Publishing, Writing Belle Magazine, and is an accomplished creative writing teacher and journalist.

Summer lives in the Central Valley of California, where she spends her time writing, teaching, and writing some more. When she is not writing, she enjoys leisurely visits with friends at coffee shops, dates to the movies, hiking in the mountains and strolling on the beach.

Author Links

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