BAD TIMING
Battle of the Undead #2
By Nicky Peacock
Giveaway: $10 Evernight Teen GC. Please use the RaffleCopter below to enter. Remember you may increase your chances of winning by visiting the other tour stops. Those locations may be found here.
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Interview:
Crystal: Today I have the pleasure of hosting Nicky Peacock. Welcome Nicky! I'm so happy to have you here today. Would you share a little bit about yourself with us today?
Nicky: I’m an author who writes horror, paranormal romance and urban fantasy for both YA and adult markets. I’m English and live in the midlands of the UK (If the map of the UK were a person, I’d be living on its belt buckle) I have a terrible sense of direction and can’t touch any clothes made of fleece. I love dogs and am oddly quite a good baker (my secret is that I swap butter for olive oil) I’m also terrible at keeping secrets!
Crystal:Do you have a favorite scene you would like to share with us?
Nicky: In Bad Timing there is one scene set on Blackpool pier which is particularly gruesome and heart-wrenching at the same time – especially when you read the prequel to the series, Traitor’s Gate coming out this year, which sheds more light on the characters in Battle of the Undead. I can’t tell you too much about it without a spoiler, but I’d love to know from readers if they agree with me.
Crystal: Where did you come up with the idea for your current release?
Nicky: It’s book 2 of a series, so the idea was formed quite some time ago. I have an overall plot line for the series, however some scenes and characters are more impulsive at the time of writing or even through the editing process. I actually came up with the vampires VS zombies story arc because I wanted to read a book that pitted these monsters against one another; and although there are books that have both vampires and zombies, there wasn’t one that I could find that had the vampires fighting through a traditional zombie apocalypse, so I decided to write it.
Crystal: What are you currently working on?
Nicky: The third book in the series, Bad Karma and also a few other projects. A YA urban fantasy thriller and also a YA dystopia.
Crystal: Do you have any special routine that you follow when you are writing?
Nicky: Not really. I work full time as well as writing, so I pretty much have to grab time whenever and however I can. I do enjoy writing at a stately home that’s near my house. It’s kind of Downton Abbey like and has a great atmosphere for writing. They also have the best homemade cookies!
Crystal: Did you have to do a lot of research for this book or any other? If so do you have a fascinating fact that you have learned you would like to share with us?
Nicky: I didn’t have to do too much research on Bad Timing, but as the prequel Traitor’s Gate is set in the 1400s, I did quite a bit for that one. Its pivotal scene is set in the Tower of London and I did discover through research that the Tower had its own zoo around that time. It was made up of exotic animals that had been given to the Royal family as gifts. There was an elephant there that the keepers unfortunately feed rum to on a regular basis, in the hopes the alcohol would keep it warm in the harsh English Winters. The poor thing was drunk constantly and died within the year.
Crystal: Who are some of your favorite authors that you like to read?
Nicky: I’m quite eclectic with my reading. When I’m in the mood for horror I read Richard Laymon and pretty much anything that comes out from the publishers, Dark Fuse. For a YA fix I read a bit of Kiera Cass and Sarah J Maas. For urban fantasy: Jennifer Estep, Keri Arthur and Laurell K Hamilton. Paranormal Romance: Donna Grant and Sara Humphreys.
Crystal: Is there any genre you haven't written that you would like to try?
Nicky: I’m quite stuck in my ways with my work. If it’s not dark, bloody or swimming in monsters, I tend to lose interest – and if the writer loses interest in their own work, readers will too. Fortunately my sinister tendencies lend themselves to a lot of different subgenres, so I can stretch my evil little imagination quite a bit without having to stick in one particular genre.
Thank you so much for having me! All the best, Nicx
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Interview:
Crystal: Today I have the pleasure of hosting Nicky Peacock. Welcome Nicky! I'm so happy to have you here today. Would you share a little bit about yourself with us today?
Nicky: I’m an author who writes horror, paranormal romance and urban fantasy for both YA and adult markets. I’m English and live in the midlands of the UK (If the map of the UK were a person, I’d be living on its belt buckle) I have a terrible sense of direction and can’t touch any clothes made of fleece. I love dogs and am oddly quite a good baker (my secret is that I swap butter for olive oil) I’m also terrible at keeping secrets!
Crystal:Do you have a favorite scene you would like to share with us?
Nicky: In Bad Timing there is one scene set on Blackpool pier which is particularly gruesome and heart-wrenching at the same time – especially when you read the prequel to the series, Traitor’s Gate coming out this year, which sheds more light on the characters in Battle of the Undead. I can’t tell you too much about it without a spoiler, but I’d love to know from readers if they agree with me.
Crystal: Where did you come up with the idea for your current release?
Nicky: It’s book 2 of a series, so the idea was formed quite some time ago. I have an overall plot line for the series, however some scenes and characters are more impulsive at the time of writing or even through the editing process. I actually came up with the vampires VS zombies story arc because I wanted to read a book that pitted these monsters against one another; and although there are books that have both vampires and zombies, there wasn’t one that I could find that had the vampires fighting through a traditional zombie apocalypse, so I decided to write it.
Crystal: What are you currently working on?
Nicky: The third book in the series, Bad Karma and also a few other projects. A YA urban fantasy thriller and also a YA dystopia.
Crystal: Do you have any special routine that you follow when you are writing?
Nicky: Not really. I work full time as well as writing, so I pretty much have to grab time whenever and however I can. I do enjoy writing at a stately home that’s near my house. It’s kind of Downton Abbey like and has a great atmosphere for writing. They also have the best homemade cookies!
Crystal: Did you have to do a lot of research for this book or any other? If so do you have a fascinating fact that you have learned you would like to share with us?
Nicky: I didn’t have to do too much research on Bad Timing, but as the prequel Traitor’s Gate is set in the 1400s, I did quite a bit for that one. Its pivotal scene is set in the Tower of London and I did discover through research that the Tower had its own zoo around that time. It was made up of exotic animals that had been given to the Royal family as gifts. There was an elephant there that the keepers unfortunately feed rum to on a regular basis, in the hopes the alcohol would keep it warm in the harsh English Winters. The poor thing was drunk constantly and died within the year.
Crystal: Who are some of your favorite authors that you like to read?
Nicky: I’m quite eclectic with my reading. When I’m in the mood for horror I read Richard Laymon and pretty much anything that comes out from the publishers, Dark Fuse. For a YA fix I read a bit of Kiera Cass and Sarah J Maas. For urban fantasy: Jennifer Estep, Keri Arthur and Laurell K Hamilton. Paranormal Romance: Donna Grant and Sara Humphreys.
Crystal: Is there any genre you haven't written that you would like to try?
Nicky: I’m quite stuck in my ways with my work. If it’s not dark, bloody or swimming in monsters, I tend to lose interest – and if the writer loses interest in their own work, readers will too. Fortunately my sinister tendencies lend themselves to a lot of different subgenres, so I can stretch my evil little imagination quite a bit without having to stick in one particular genre.
Thank you so much for having me! All the best, Nicx
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Blurb:
Blurb:
“You know now that monsters are real. Whether they have recently risen to reach for your flesh, or have chosen now to step from the shadows; you are surrounded by them. You also know that I
am one too, but I’m all you’ve got and time is running out…”
There’s no rest for the wicked, especially in a zombie apocalypse. Britannia has used every vampire skill at her disposal to keep those she cares for safe, but with old enemies and unseen adversaries moving against her, she will have to push herself to both her physical and ethical limits to survive. Britannia is changing, but will it be
for the better?
**Please note this is the second book in a series that should be read in order. **
Evernight Teen Publishing,
30K words
14+ due to violence and adult situations
Buy Links:
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Have you ever wanted to star in a YA book?
Here's your chance! In honor of the release of BAD TIMING, the second book in Nicky Peacock's Battle of the Undead series, she will choose and feature a character created by one lucky reader in the last book of the series, BAD KARMA. Contest details here
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Excerpt:
“If there’s someone there, you’d better show yourself. Unless you want me to cleave off your head,” I shouted. I heard a cough and saw a tall, well-built man slip from the shadows.
He wasn’t bad looking, but his dark hair was styled with cement-like gel and his eyes were far too blue to be natural.
“Apologies. I wasn’t sure if you were friend or foe.” He nodded at me.
He was a vampire, probably a little younger than me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My dear, you are the one trespassing on my territory. It should be me asking questions of you.” He gave me a sly smile, as if he was trying to get away with something. Like he’d farted and was waiting for me to smell it.
“If this was truly your territory you’d have attacked me, not slunk in the shadows like a sniveling child.” I pulled my axe back so I held it by the handle and it rested on my shoulder.
He put his hands up; he was unarmed and laughed beneath his breath. “I now understand the Elders rule.”
He was referring to the old, no female vampires rule – misogynistic t scumbags. It was then that I got a good whiff of blood, live human blood.
“Have you got people here?”
“Why yes, we’ve collected a few to take to the Highlands. Would you like to join me for a drink?”
And he’d been openly feeding off them, great!
“No, I’ll give that a miss. Where are they?”
“In the store room, back there. They’re uninfected,” he said with a sweeping invitation with his arm. “I must say, I’ve never seen a female vampire so beautiful.”
Good grief, did he think this was some sort of date? That we would sit back and watch Dawn of the Dead whilst munching on scared survivors? What an asshat!
I narrowed my eyes and walked to the door he was pointing to. He smiled and gestured for me to open it. I did. Now I was fully aware that this could have been a trap, but even if a hundred vampires descended on me, I still had an axe to Red Queen their asses back to
Wonderland.
“May I introduce myself?” he said behind me.
“No.” I stepped through the door and
was hit with the smell of both old and fresh blood. I took in the large
warehouse back quickly: boxes were piled high with electronics, gadgets and God
only knows what other useless items, but there were also people crouching by
them. They were blindfolded and roped together with a thick unforgiving plastic
vine. Some were still bleeding from where he had fed off them. Some were
whispering prayers in ragged voices. Some slowly pulled at their bindings, more
like they were an itch than a problem. But all cowered when they heard his
voice. There was a collective shiver that even caught me in its terrible wake.
Whoever this vampire was, he was truly living up to monster status now.
“Here,” he said as he lifted the
plastic rope and pulled the nearest person toward us, “have a drink.”
I looked at the young boy bound and
blindfolded before me; he had blood all down his Simpson’s t-shirt and he’d
pissed himself, probably days ago now. This was what the Highlands were going
to be like, just with slightly less feeling and more order.
“My name is Ludwig. What’s yours, my
blonde haired vixen?” He pushed the boy at me and I moved so that I was stood
between them.
“Britannia.”
“What?” Ludwig’s eyes widened. He’d
heard of me, the lack of blue hair had been what had put him off the initial recognition.
If I’d looked more like my old self he’d have run from me, or attacked me in
the shop. I might never have discovered his little person larder.
“Yeah, I was forced into a make
under.” I smiled sweetly at him, “Ludwig, you have something on your sleeve.” I
swung the axe so hard that it cleaved his arm straight off. Blood sprayed
across me, splattering my face and streaking the front of my hair. Unlike human
blood, vampire blood is cool, smells metallic and tastes like sea water, kind
of like your blood tastes to you. Some vampires get a taste for their own kind;
those were usually the ones that the Elders sent me after.
Ludwig’s look of shock was only
matched by his girlish scream. He clutched at his leaky stump and shuddered. I
lifted the axe again, this time to cleave off his head, but he must have
regained a modicum of resolve, as he caught the axe’s blade in mid-swing. I
quickly slipped my hands down the handle and, palms up, slammed it vertically
so that its blade crushed against his skull. I heard a sickening crack as bone
crumbled against the force. He keeled and stumbled back through the shop’s
doors. I edged forward and crouched, sweeping my leg out to trip him over. Once
he lay sprawled on the floor, I lifted my axe a final time and off rolled his
head. It tumbled down the flat screen TV section.
The tethered humans were now
desperately pulling at their bonds. I guess the big bad that had just killed
their torturer was probably not someone they wanted to stick around and have
tea with – better the devil you know.
I moved carefully toward the nearest
boy. I gently took his blindfold from him and he blinked a few times and
recoiled at my presence.
“It’s okay,” I said, hands out, palms
up, “I’m here to help you. I won’t hurt you.”
The boy edged further away from me,
pulling on all their ropes. He particularly dragged all of the survivors onto
the floor. I suddenly had an image of me leading them like a chain of dogs
through the streets. If Satan had been on a leash, he’d have died. If I couldn’t
do that to a dog, I’d be damned if I was going to be responsible for leading an
all-you-can-eat zombie buffet conga line.
“Look, I know you have no reason to
trust me, but...”
“You’re one of them,” said the boy,
looking past me to Ludwig’s twitching corpse. He must have been old; it can
sometimes take a while for the magic to leave older vampires.
“We’re not all the same you know.” I
stepped to his side and took a blindfold off a nearby woman, “Wait a minute,
them?”
The woman gave me a quizzical look,
“There’s another one. He had red hair and a posh accent; like from Downton
Abbey.”
Okay, now time was of the essence. I
pulled out my pink handled knife and sliced the rope between all the humans. I
removed all their blindfolds and counted them: twelve.
“Right, here are your choices. You
can say here and wait for Red, whoever he is, to come back and drink you dry,
or you can follow me and I can get you the hell out of zombie central.”
“Zombies?” they all said together.
“You haven’t noticed the slathering
zombie masses?” I asked.
“No,” said an older man, who had
managed to pick up a plank of wood and hide it behind his back while I wasn’t
looking.
“How long have you been in here?”
The man chose then to swing the plank
at me, which I caught and crumbled in my grip. The small crowd gasped and I
think they were just about to all fall onto me, when the bell at the door of
the shop chimed.
“Oh no, it’s him. He came back for
us.” A young girl of no more than thirteen cowered near me. I turned to her.
“I won’t let him hurt you. I told
you, we’re not all the same.”
She bit her bottom lip and squeezed
out a fat tear that rolled down her ruddy cheek.
“My name is Britannia. I know this is
all a bit...” I struggled for the right word, “...weird, but I’ll get you some
place safe. You just have to trust me.”
“So, let me get this straight.” The
boy whose blindfold I’d took off first edged toward me. “You’re a friendly
blood sucking demon, and there are zombies outside. But you’ll protect us? At
what price, you gonna feed off and kill us one by one like your friend there?”
He motioned at Ludwig’s now still body. I kicked the vampire’s corpse out of
the door and into the main shop, out of the eye-line of the humans.
I didn’t have time for this. I needed
to get a new radio, some food and get back to the zoo. I needed to tell Tate I
was alive and for Josh and Jack to know I was on my way to them. I hadn’t even
bothered to ask these humans’ names and here I was trying to protect them,
while they challenged my ethical code. I was just about to give the boy what
for, when a rumbling groan echoed through the store. I peered out to see a
group of zombies shuffling toward Ludwig’s body. Once there, they began to rip
him apart like an overcooked turkey. There were stuffing- and cranberry
sauce-like substances cascading out of the yawning cracks they were making with
their bare hands. I gagged and quickly closed the door.
**Series is a must to be read in order, make sure to get your copy of #1**
Bad Blood Battle of the Undead #1
“I am Britannia. I am your protector. I will fend off the hungry hordes of undead hands that reach toward you. I am your steadfast defender. I will stand between you and the zombie masses as they try to taste your flesh. I am strong, unyielding, and dedicated to your survival. All I ask from you… is your
blood.”
A 500 year bloody game of vengeance will need to be put on hold if vampires are to survive the zombie uprising. Bitter enemies, Britannia and Nicholas must work together to save un-infected humans, delivering them to a stronghold in Scotland.
Unable to drink the zombie blood, vampires need humans to stay alive. But will they tell the survivors who they are, and what they want from them? Will Britannia be able to hold back her vengeance? Is survivor Josh the reincarnation of Britannia’s murdered true love? And can she bring herself to deliver him to the safe hold?
Survival instincts run deep, but bad blood can run deeper.
Buy Links: Evernight Teen Amazon B&N Print
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About the Author:
Nicky is a published author of both YA and adult urban fantasy, paranormal romance and
horror fiction. She lives in the heart of the UK, where she has run a writers' group for over 4 years to help new writers find their feet on the path to publication. A member of both the Society of Authors and the British Fantasy Society, Nicky has had over 30 stories published in various anthologies. Bad Timing is her second book in the Battle of the Undead series published through Evernight Teen. She loves to talk to readers, so please feel free to either get in touch with her through her blog, or on any of the social media below.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickyp_author
Face Book Page: https://www.facebook.com/nicky.peacock.10
YA Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/NickyPeacockYaBooks
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Nicky-Peacock/e/B007UH2ACW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_4
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/nickypauthor/
Tumblr: http://nickypeacock.tumblr.com/
Authorgraph: https://www.authorgraph.com/authors/NickyP_author
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