Mari Mancusi Guest Post

Mari Mancusi

Mari Mancusi used to wish she could become a vampire back in high school.

But she ended up in another blood sucking profession --journalism -- instead. Today she works as a freelance TV producer and author of books for teens and adults. When not writing about creatures of the night, Mari enjoys traveling, cooking, goth clubbing, watching cheesy horror movies, and her favorite guilty pleasure--videogames. A graduate of Boston University and a two time Emmy Award winner, she lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Jacob, daughter Avalon, and their dog Mesquite.

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Imagine if you will, a dark and stormy night. The fog rolling into the cemetery in waves. You pull your jacket a little tighter around you as you stumble through the blackness, desperately searching for an exit.

Suddenly you hear a noise—to your left and another to your right. Two guys step in front of you. Both, you realize, have just risen from their graves. Both have no pulse. And both are interested in imbibing your bodily fluids.

So how come the vampire is making you swoon...and the zombie is making you scream?

Poor zombies. They get such a bad rap, even in the world of the undead. I mean, everyone freaking loves their cousins, the vampires, who dress in debonair outfits, live in luxurious mansions, and sometimes even get to sparkle. And best of all—they’re way popular with the ladies. But every time a poor zombie tries to get up close and personal with a girl he likes? She starts running in the other direction.

At least the zombies have each other. Unlike vampires, who tend to live lonely lives in dreary castles or wander the Earth alone, zombies are rather social creatures, preferring to live and work in large numbers. In fact, their numbers are their greatest strength, seeing as they lack the vampires’ superpowers. They’re slow, kind of dumb, and definitely single-minded. Thank goodness they get a little help from their friends or they’d die of starvation in no time!

OKAY now that I think about it, zombies might not make the best boyfriends. (Even though they are very interested in a girl with brains!) But I have to say, they do make really terrifying bad guys and are a lot of fun for an author to use in her books.

Like with my post-apocalyptic novel, Tomorrow Land. Best described as a post-apocalyptic pilgrimage to Disney World in a zombie infested wasteland, the story follows two teens who had fallen in love before the apocalypse and then separated, Casablanca style, only to be reunited four years later and forced to find a way to trust one another again. (All the while trying to deal with those pesky, flesh eating zombies!) As an author who traditionally writes vampire stories—where the monsters are actually the good guys—it was fun to take on another kind of undead this time...one that’s a lot more scary than sexy.

About Tomorrow Land 

Can true love survive the end of the world?

Imagine finding your first love, only to be ripped apart by the apocalypse. Peyton Anderson will never forget the day she was forced to make a choice--between her family--and Chris Parker, the boy she'd given her heart. And now, four years later, as she steps from the fallout shelter and into a dead and broken world, he's the only thing on her mind.

All Chris "Chase" Parker wanted was to take Peyton away and keep her safe from harm. But he waited for hours in the rain on judgment day and she never showed--breaking his heart without ever telling him why.

Now the two of them have been thrown together once again, reluctant chaperones of a group of orphan children in a post-apocalyptic world where the dead still walk...and feed. As they begin their pilgrimage to the last human outpost on Earth, can they find a way to let go of old hurts and find the love they lost--all the while attempting to save what's left of the human race?

Add Tomorrow Land to Good Reads:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13501083-tomorrow-land

About Mari Mancusi 

Two time Emmy award winner Mari Mancusi used to wish she could be a vampire back in high school. But she ended up in another bloodsucking profession--journalism--instead. Today she works as a freelance TV producer and author of books for teens, including the award winning Blood Coven Vampire series published by Penguin Books. When not writing about creatures of the night, Mari enjoys traveling, cooking, goth clubbing, watching cheesy horror movie and her favorite guilty pleasure--videogames. A graduate of Boston University , she lives in Austin , Texas with her husband Jacob, daughter Avalon and dog Mesquite .

Website: www.marimancusi.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bloodcovenvampires
Twitter: @marimancusi

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Can true love survive the end of the world?

Imagine finding your first love, only to be ripped apart by the apocalypse. Peyton Anderson will never forget the day she was forced to make a choice--between her family--and Chris Parker, the boy she'd given her heart. And now, four years later, as she steps from the fallout shelter and into a dead and broken world, he's the only thing on her mind.

All Chris "Chase" Parker wanted was to take Peyton away and keep her safe from harm. But he waited for hours in the rain on judgment day and she never showed--breaking his heart without ever telling him why.

Now the two of them have been thrown together once again, reluctant chaperones of a group of orphan children in a post-apocalyptic world where the dead still walk...and feed. As they begin their pilgrimage to the last human outpost on Earth, can they find a way to let go of old hurts and find the love they lost--all the while attempting to save what's left of the human race?

"A high-stakes, high-octane tour through a devastating and deftly imagined future. This is Mancusi at the top of her game."
Diana Peterfreund, author of For Darkness Shows the Stars

Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi is about a post-apocalyptic world where a mutated flu outbreak caused people all over America to be zombie-like. We are presented with a front row seat of an emotional adventure ride with the main character, Peyton Anderson, on the driver’s seat.

The setting is set in the future. It was 2030 before the outbreak started. Peyton was your normal teenager without the luxury of technology that most of her friends had. She was really left out with the current trend of technology but it helped her realize that reality, things that are real, is far more important to live and understand. Her scientist dad always lived every day like it was the last. His paranoia led him to modify his daughter to be ready for that day. He made her stronger and gave her razors that would come out of her fingertips.

The story starts four years later with the bunker door opening. Peyton and her family lived in this bunk to wait out the zombie apocalypse. The story alternates from the present and flashbacks of the outbreak that leads up to her family going underground. Before taking refuge, Peyton’s father set out on a mission to find the cure of the outbreak. The ride goes on full gear as Peyton and her ex-boyfriend, Chase, takes on a quest to locate her father. Her father mentioned that he had stored vital information in Peyton’s brain that would ultimately save the world.

Mancusi’s delicate way of choosing the right words to describe her characters, setting, and story is simply wonderful. She puts intensity in each sentence that the world she created and the characters that lived in it are so real. The construction of how she told the present and flashbacks were steady and vivid. The interactions between characters felt genuine, especially Peyton and Chase’s past love. Mancusi’s tale of human strength in a post-apocalyptic world is marvelously written that is full of action, zombies, adventure, and romance.

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And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you Mari for making this giveaway possible.

2 Winners will receive one e-book copy of Tomorrow Land Mari Mancusi.

a Rafflecopter giveaway