Guest post and contest with Jesse Petersen

As you know, Bite Club is expanding to include zombies and I am thrilled to have author Jesse Petersen here today to talk about her new book, Married With Zombies. Jesse will be stopping by throughout the day to answer any and all zombie related questions, and don't forget to read the end of the post for contest details. And now...here's Jesse!

Love is a Battlefield

Jesse Petersen

First off I want to say thanks so much to BiteClub for featuring me and MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES on the blog! What a big honor to be the first zombie book covered here. I happen be a little biased toward zombie fiction, so I think it’s awesome that the blog is expanding its horizons! And I’d also like to add that I shall lurk about on comments today, so if you have questions/comments on the zombie genre or MWZ, do shout them out and I’ll try to be a good advocate for the zombie-fied and brain-hungry.

A lot of people ask me how in the world I wrote a fantasy/urban fantasy zombie comedy, especially since this is not the background I come from as a writer (I actually write historical romance under another name and it’s all serious and dark and sexy). The answer is pretty much Sarah, my main character from MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES.

You see, I was minding my own business, writing my other stories and then one night I went to see “Zombieland” with my husband and some friends. This 2009 horror comedy featured zombies (sweet!) and Woody Harrelson (AWESOME) and how could anyone resist that potent and hilarious combination? Not me. I loved the movie and within twenty-four hours this scene started bothering me. Poking me. Whispering at me. Very distracting, I can tell you.

The scene is the opening one of MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES where Sarah and David, married couple of the brink of divorce, find that their marriage counselor has been turned into a zombie and is eating the couple on her schedule before them. And the scene was gory and funny. And the reactions of Dave and Sarah were funny (at least in my head). And somehow I decided that I HAD to write it down, even if it was only entertain myself.

But since I am a writer by trade, I could just write that scene and be happy. I really had to see where it went from there. And that meant I had to figure out what was up with Dave and Sarah. Why were they in counseling? Why were they so mad at each other? Could their marriage be saved by a zombie apocalypse? As I started to answer those questions, both in my head and on paper as I wrote, I started to have even more fun. These were modern people with a sense of humor and sensibility about the world that was pretty similar to my own (probably I’m a combination of Dave and Sarah, to be honest). So I got to throw all my sarcasm and swearing onto the page and just PLAY.

So who is Sarah? A harried woman married very young who had thoughts about what her life would be like and the ones she’s living is NOT it. She’s frustrated by her husband’s lack of ambition and her own dead-end job and life and little by little that has torn away at the foundations of why they liked each other to begin with. And that doesn’t sound very funny, but to me it was very real. These are real things that break up real couples every day. So if I was going to throw in zombies, I wanted the problems at the core of their marriage to be real and relatable.

And then there was David. Since Sarah narrates the story, I couldn’t get as deeply into his head, but through his actions I think it’s pretty clear that he’s not particularly happy about the direction of his life, either. He feels guilty that his choices have put them in a bad situation, but the more Sarah gets pissed, the more he retreats to a world of video games and tv. Luckily, he plays a lot of zombie killing games. That will come in handy when the zombies hit the fan.

So then I took these two people and threw them into a situation where they had to forget how irritated they were at each other and start working together. Will they remember why they got married in the first place? Will they escape Seattle with Brrrrraaaains intact? Will they even survive? Well, I guess you
have to read to find out.

To learn more about Jesse and her books, visit her new website!

Want a look at Married With Zombies? Click here.

My thanks to Jesse Petersen for stopping by at Bite Club! Jesse and her publishers have generously given me 3 copies of Married With Zombies to giveaway to 3 lucky Bite Club readers. If you want a chance to win, leave a question for Jesse or leave a comment answering the question: Why read zombies?

Official contest rules:

*You must leave a comment/ask a question to have a chance to win.

*Contest will run until September 29th and the winner will be announced on September 30th.

*Please leave your contact info if an email isn't listed in your profile.

Review: Married With Zombies by Jesse Petersen

From the Publisher:
Meet Sarah and David— a couple on the verge of divorce. On their way to marriage counseling, they notice a few odd things: a missing guard, a lack of cars on the freeway, and their counselor ripping out the throat of her previous client.

Now it’s up to David and Sarah to work together, save their marriage — and survive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Review:
Zombies are gross and totally creepy so I was a little hesitant to read this book for fear of having nightmares for the next year or so. It's true. But I must like to be scared because I watch zombie movies even though they scare me senseless and I bravely put on my brave girl face and started reading my very first zombie book.

I'm so glad I decided to step out of my comfort zone because Married With Zombies was like reading Shaun of the Dead, funny and scary at the same time!

Some of the descriptions were completely whacked and left me with more than one disturbing visual. Vomiting black sludge was a total eww! moment, as was the image of a legless zombie dragging itself across the road. A few moments had me wanting to scrub out my brain so I wouldn't be forever traumatized by the thought of a therapist eating a patient, or a neighbor being bashed with a toilet seat. Okay, the toilet scene was actually kind of funny.

Sarah and David had issues but I loved how the zombie threat brought them closer together. Yes, they still bicker but they are committed to each other and also to fighting the zombies until the absolute end.

Some of my favorite lines/scenes are:

Beer.
F@#^ that sounded good.
Even though it was barely eight-thirty in the morning. But zombieism breeds alcoholism. It's true. Look it up.

and then,

These were times I was glad I had married a former Boy Scout. Those rope-tying skills had come in handy more than once during our relationship. What? Everyone experiments. Don't judge.

So if you want a good laugh and a fun-filled action adventure, give Jess Petersen a try. And to learn more about upcoming zombie books, or if you just want to send a zombie valentine...visit her website.

*This book was given to me by the publisher (Orbit/Hachette Book Group).
*Reviewed for Bite Club by Anna Dougherty.