Guest Post/Giveaway: SM Reine - Death's Hand

Hello all!! Today I have a very special guest post from SM Reine, author of the new dark urban fantasy novel Death's Hand!! She's here on the blog talking about ZOMBIES! And we're celebrating the release of this novel with a fantastic giveaway: bookmarks!! They look seriously awesome. Check out the picture after you read her awesome zombie-themed guest post and see the details about her new book, Death's Hand.

• Pub. Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Red Iris Books
• Format: Paperback 336pp

Policing relations between Heaven, Hell, and Earth is messy and violent, but Elise Kavanagh and James Faulkner excelled at it-- until coming across a job so brutal that even they couldn't stand to see one more dead body.

Now they've been pretending to be normal for five years, leaving their horrific history a dark secret. Elise works in an office. James owns a business. None of their friends realize they used to be one of the world's best killing teams.

After years of hiding, something stirs. Bodies are vanishing. Demons scurry in the shadows of the night. A child has been possessed.

Some enemies aren't willing to let the secrets of the past stay dead...

SM Reine on loving zombies..

The most interesting part of being a writer is getting to examine the baser natures of humanity.
You don’t need to be a licensed therapist to write books, but you do need to have a pretty good idea of what makes people do the things they do and think the things they think so that your characters don’t come across wooden.

Humans are tribal creatures at the core. We may have built great cities and illuminated the darkness with artificial flame, but in some baser part of our brains, we’re still hairy little monkeys huddled together for warmth. We crave shelter and safety. We need community, love, and acceptance. And most of all, we’re afraid—afraid of the dark and the things that lurk inside of it.

So it’s kind of strange that we love zombies. In a way, they represent all of our basest fears: death, the desecration of our bodies, and having everyone turn against us.

Pop culture has taken charge of this fear. When you see zombies in fiction, it will almost always be from the perspective of a group of survivors struggling for their lives—generally with great success. The fighter with torn clothes, an axe in one hand, and an assault rifle strapped to her back is an iconic image of zombie fiction, but she’s almost never alone. Survivors come in teams. This is how we react to overwhelming odds: banding together in our little family groups against the darkness. We want to feel like we can prevail if the whole world goes wrong, and we don’t want to do it alone.

Furthermore, zombies are the ultimate in going against the crowd. Haven’t you ever wondered what would happen if you started screaming in the library? What if you stripped naked in the middle of an airport? (When you’re not going through security, that is.) When the zombie apocalypse arrives and you’re still alive, you’re going against the grain—until you get bitten and lose yourself. In some way, the zombie thing is our way of expressing our individuality in a world of brainless horrors.

It also satisfies a carnal urge to slaughter. We are violent little monkeys, and there’s a reason so many people like to play bloody video games and watch horror movies full of torture. It’s fulfilling a horrible, dark fantasy that so many of us possess but don’t want to admit to owning. In the zombie apocalypse, you would get a chance to kill huge numbers of human-like enemies without guilt, because zombies don’t love, and they don’t have families. It doesn’t get any more brutal than that.

I took a little bit of a different path with the zombies in Death’s Hand. They aren’t the traditional shambling horde—they’re corpses that have been possessed by a demon with the power over death. They can be exorcised, and they can be killed, but they aren’t infectious. It’s a different level of scary, and the way my characters react is extremely revealing in that hairy monkey kind of way. (Hint: It involves lots of violence.)

Whatever our reasons for loving zombies, I’ve got my plan in place to survive the apocalypse. I know where to find the guns and supplies, and I know where I’m going to hide out when the rotting dead walk the streets. It might be primitive of me, but I’m not going to sit back and let the zombies win. I’m going to go out with a bang!

Do you love zombie stories? How will you survive the zombie apocalypse?

SM Reine is an author of dark fantasy for teen and adult audiences. Her most widely known work is "Six Moon Summer," which has been hailed as "fresh and fast-paced" and "captivating." She lives in Nevada with her husband, the Helpful Baby, and too many black animals to count.

Find Sara:
twitter | goodreads | amazon | b&n | facebook

Giveaway Alert!

The wonderful author is giving away some bookmarks!! One lucky winner will receive a signed bookmark with a Death's Hand charm. Two also lucky winners will each get a signed bookmark without charms. Check out the awesome picture below of these cool bookmarks and use the Rafflecopter form to enter to win! It's international, so everyone can enter! Ends 11/14. Questions? Comment here with a way to get back to you. Thanks and good luck!!