The Zombie Candy Whirlwind Tour!
Hi everyone! This week I have the great pleasure of taking part in my dear friend, author Frederick Brooke's, blog tour! I'm so excited to be of the tour for such an amazing author and fantastic book! Zombie Candy is the second book in the Annie Ogden Mystery series. Today I've posted my review of Zombie Candy, an interview with Fred Brooke, and of course all of the information on how to win in the GIVEAWAY! But first, let's find out more about the author and his new release.
About The Author
Born and raised in the Chicago area, Frederick Lee Brooke graduated from Amherst College and studied writing at the University of Montana. He has worked as an English teacher, language school manager and small business owner. Having lived in Germany, France and Switzerland, he has also travelled extensively in Tuscany, the setting of part of Zombie Candy. The first book in the Annie Ogden series, Doing Max Vinyl, appeared in 2011 to wide acclaim.
About Zombie Candy (An Annie Ogden Mystery)
You know early on, from the color of the inappropriate bra in the opening scenes, that Zombie Candy is going to be a black comedy. Most people could sympathize with an obsession for sex and zombie movies, but who would put up with a husband who doused every dish with cilantro?
Frederick Lee Brooke serves up another literary treat with this bizarre and comical tale of love and betrayal. Candace Roach enlists her best friend Annie Ogden (our favorite sleuth from Doing Max Vinyl) to find out what her husband is up to – but their home-cooked aversion therapy gets out of hand and hurtles along an astonishing highway of the undead.
In the words of Emma Calin, author of Knockout, A Passionate Police Romance: “This book has all the ingredients of a perfect noir comedy – well formed characters, international locations, a fast moving plot with no brakes, and of course zombies. Revenge is a dish best served cold – and as a betrayed wife, master chef and cookery instructor, Candace cooks up the perfect recipe for the ultimate gazpacho.”
Review
Frederick Brooke's Zombie Candy is a fabulous read! I loved the first book in the series, Doing Max Vinyl, so I couldn't wait to read the second. Annie Ogden is back, and this time she's wielding her private investigator's license. Annie's best friend, Candace, discovers that her zombie movie obsessed husband Larry, has been cheating on her. The ink on Annie's PI license is barely dry, but she offers to track down evidence of Larry's lechery. She invites Salvatore, her teacher from PI school, along for the ride. But what they find out gives them the shock of their lives!
Evidence now in place, it turns out Candace is the one to watch out for. She decides she's going to teach Larry a lesson he'll never forget and she's going to do it on her own turf. Posing as a bogus philanthropic organization, she invites Larry on a free trip to Italy. Larry brings his friend Roberta for company, and before long they are settled into a cozy house in the quaint town of Monte Chianti for a dream vacation.
It starts on the very first night of their visit. Something is rattling the windows. Strange groups of people are walking by the house and into the woods beyond. At first Larry thinks that it must be some kind of cult. But upon closer inspection, they seem more like...zombies? Or maybe he's just watched too many movies.
Brooke does a fantastic job of paying homage to the zombie movies we love in this hilarious parody. Annie Ogden fans will not be disappointed. Our girl is still out there fighting for those who've been wronged. And, as usual when I read a Brooke novel, I laughed until my sides hurt. This series is a keeper. I will be eagerly awaiting the third installment of the Annie Ogden Mysteries!
An Interview with Frederick Brooke
1. What was the inspiration behind your novel, Zombie Candy?
There was a famous golfer whose wife chased him out of the house with a golf club in the middle of the night a couple of years ago. It was funny that she attacked her husband with his own weapon of choice. I got to thinking what must be going through a woman’s mind in that situation? I thought it would be interesting to explore the thought processes of a woman who discovers that her husband is a serial cheater. After the denial comes anger, but there is also a phase of grief. There’s guilt. Maybe she blames herself, rightly or wrongly. Candace oscillates between wanting revenge and wanting her husband back, and as the novel winds up she makes discoveries about herself that I thought a woman in her situation would be likely to make.
2. Do you think Zombie Candy will appeal to true zombie fans?
What’s a true zombie fan? I don’t want to give anything away, but any active zombie fan who participates in zombie walks, goes to festivals, etc. will love Zombie Candy. That being said, this is a book that has elements of mystery, horror and romance all in one. It had quite a few early readers, fans of all different genres, and the consensus is that it really works.
3. The book contains some of Candace’s favorite recipes. Why?
I confess, I love to cook, and it’s such an important part of my life, it just felt natural to have Candace want to share her recipes. We are all vulnerable to being attacked through our taste buds. I like reading about cooking, and I love watching cooking shows on TV. I feel like I’m learning something and tasting it at the same time. It felt right for this to be really important for Candace. At the same time, her husband Larry is so incredibly lacking in appreciation of her talents, not just the cooking itself, but organizing complex meals and directing the preparation of them by her class of twelve people. These are amazing skills, and Larry is blind to them. I thought marriages are sometimes like that, where people get to a point where they are totally ignorant of what their partner is great at.
4. There is a no-cilantro label on the back cover of the book. What is the significance of it?
Candace is a gourmet cook, and her cheating husband Larry insists on covering all his food with cilantro. This is one of those minor points of contention in a marriage that flares up and becomes important, like a trigger. I thought it was funny. And it seems a lot of people really do have strong feelings about cilantro, either for or against. When I was searching for a good graphic I came across pages on the internet like
ihatecilantro.com and
facebook.com/i-hate-cilantro.
5. After starting out in Chicago, why did you decide to set the story in Tuscany?
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Italy forty or fifty times in my life, sometimes for a two-week vacation, sometimes just for a very short trip. I absolutely love it there, from the food to the language to the beauty of the countryside and the architecture. In Zombie Candy, Candace realizes at a certain point that she has to get Larry out of his comfort zone. This is a guy who travelled all over the country every week for his work, and cheated on Candace with waitresses, flight attendants, whoever. He can adapt just about anywhere. But in Tuscany Larry discovers two things: 1) it’s not so easy to find a willing waitress or flight attendant to spend the night with him; and 2) there are zombies here.
6. How would you describe the way you work as a writer?
I guess I’m a bit of a chameleon, able to adapt pretty well to circumstances around me. My wife and I have three boys and they are not quiet. I can do most revision with significant background noise and interruptions. Only when I’m writing a first draft or doing some serious planning work do I need peace and quiet. Then I’ll often take a walk in the forest anyway. It helps a lot to be adaptable. If I had to put off writing every time someone asked me to cook dinner or help them with their homework, my book would never have been finished. For me, being able to jump right back in has been the key to being able to finish big projects.
7. Did you always want to be a writer?
I was an early reader and this led to curiosity about writing stories. My sister and I wrote stories during long car trips. In high school and then in college I dreamed of writing novels, but I only started writing short stories after graduating from college. That writing phase lasted about five years, and I learned a lot about writing, but life got in the way, with marriage and job and career and kids. Only when my kids were halfway grown and my career reached a certain level of success did I find a way to return to writing. Now I’m fulfilling a lifelong dream.
8. What process do you go through to define your characters?
I start with an image of them as basically good or basically evil, and put them into a context or a situation, and then just basically make sure there is plenty of conflict. My characters are never perfectly white or black. I think we’re drawn to weaknesses. We want to watch them mess up, and see how they’ll extricate themselves. Of course, sometimes all my planning goes out the window. It’s a cliche to say that characters surprise you with their actions, but they do. They’re defined by what they do and what they say. I did some acting in high school and have always loved the theater, and knowing what it means to be in character helps me be in character when I’m writing dialogue. My books are fairly dialogue-driven. What the characters say reveals what they are thinking and feeling.
9. What writing advice did you receive that was most beneficial to you?
I had to learn to love conflict. The conflict is the story. The conflict shows the true colors of your characters. I grew up in the suburbs in a family where we avoided conflict at all costs. We talked like diplomats. So embracing conflict has been something I had to learn.
10. You’re an indie author. Any thoughts on the divide between independent publishing and traditional publishing?
I think the market will sort itself out, but it’s going to take time. Good books will find their way into readers’ hands somehow, whether in printed or electronic form. We need our stories every day. We can’t live without stories. For me personally, independent publishing has been the perfect solution. I found an excellent editor who professionally edited my manuscript. I like the idea that I can control the timing of the publication of my books. If my first book, Doing Max Vinyl, had been traditionally published in April 2011 instead of the way I did it, it probably would have hit the remainder tables by Thanksgiving, and it would be out of print now. I think Zombie Candy might spark some interest in Doing Max Vinyl, so it’s a benefit to readers as well as to me that it continues to be available, rather than going out of print and being forgotten. E-books are clearly here to stay, because the consumers (readers) and providers (authors) are the big winners. The only losers are the bookstores, publishing companies, agents and others who refuse to adapt.
NOW ON TO THE GIVEAWAY!
As part of the special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Zombie Candy eBook edition is just 99 cents this week! What's more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes. The prizes include $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.
All the info you need to win one of these amazing prizes is at Zombie Candy's Tour Page at Novel Publicity. Remember, winning is as easy as clicking a button or leaving a blog comment - easy to enter, easy to win!
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