Featured Horror Author – Linda Butler

I would like to introduce to you our first horror writer, Linda Butler, and she’s all about beauty and brains. Her love of horror began at a young age with the exposure to such classic horror films as “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Last Man on Earth”.

After a layoff, Linda J. Butler returned to school and graduated from Mount St. Mary's College with an M.A. in Humanities with an emphasis in Creative Writing. Her novel, Anti-Sentient, began as a writing assignment for a short novel class. With her professor’s encouragement, she shopped the finished product around for publication.

A native Angeleno, Linda is a technical editor currently residing in West Los Angeles, CA. Anti-Sentient is her first novel.  

Anti-Sentient Synopsis

Strange things are happening in Los Angeles: a vintage guitar shop owner finds a strange woman lingering near his shop as he closes up for the night; a homeless man attacks a waitress returning home from the late shift; the residents of a West Los Angeles apartment complex are awoken in the middle of the night to discover a group of strange people attacking a man in the building’s courtyard. In each instance the attackers move slowly and unsteadily, with eyes that are milky white and teeth like razors. Similar events are happening all over the city. Videos of the attacks have begun to filter onto the internet. The media is blaming the outbreak of violence on terrorists. The actual cause is far more insidious.  

The only hope to stopping the outbreak can be found at the headquarters of Nardock International, a drug research company secretly testing a new gene therapy, Anti-Sentient 6, on human subjects. Inside the headquarters’ walls, a test subject has begun to metamorphosize into a creature, devoid of humanity. The fate of the City of Angels, and perhaps mankind, depends on what happens within the next few hours.

How she came to write Anti-Sentient

Linda returned to school to earn her Master's degree and took a creative writing class titled, "The Short Novel". Her assignment for the semester was to write a novel about anything. Linda decided to write a zombie novel about people being stuck in an upstairs apartment during a zombie apocalypse because of a dream she had of her best friend and her being stuck in her apartment with a horde of zombies in the courtyard.

Her professor had each student sign a contract indicating how many hours a day they would devote to their novel. She wasn't working so Linda agreed to work three hours a day…and she did. When she wasn't writing, she was thinking about the book. By the end of the semester, Linda finished her book and her professor encouraged her to shop it around, and it got picked up by and independent press, Spore Press.

Indie Publisher

She came across Spore Press’s website and their request for Biopunk material. Anti-Sentient seemed like a perfect fit. Linda really liked the idea of being in on the ground floor with an organization that she believes loves what they're doing. She couldn't be happier with them.

Writing

She’s always enjoyed writing, but was shy and unsure about her material. Linda wanted to be a writer, but she didn't think it was possible. Being laid off and taking creative writing classes changed that. Losing her job gave Linda the freedom to try anything. She looked at it as a way of reinventing herself. Going to graduate school placed her in a setting where she was surrounded by really talented writers. The classes gave Linda confidence in her writing and helped her grow. 

Technology plays a huge part in her writing process. She knows many writers are purists and believe in putting pen to paper—she’s the complete opposite. Linda writes on her laptop. Her thoughts come too fast to keep up with using a pen, and she admits to having terrible penmanship.

Anti-Sentient Book Trailer

Anti-Sentient Amazon

Anti-Sentient Barnes & Noble

https://www.facebook.com/AntiSentient

Thank you, Linda for being a featured author and a part of Paying it Forward. I wish you much luck with Anti-Sentient and ask others to spread the word – http://bit.ly/UZWlij

Horror and Unemployment,

Bea

The Murderer’s Daughters

A friend of mine recently made a blog post, Complete, Yet Incomplete, about a book having so many great things about it, yet parts of it failed. She asked her readers several questions, such as how we consider a story a success, or if we didn’t like a book by an author, would we attempt to read that author again?

In The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers, I can honestly answer with a booming response that this book is a success and I’d definitely read another one of her books. It was the first since The Book Thief where I wanted the end to tie everything up in a little bow, yet even though that didn’t happen I was content (with a smile). The Murderer’s Daughters is beautifully written and executed with emotional depth and truth from two points of views (POV)—Merry and Lulu (the daughters).

This book spans about 30-years of Merry and Lulu’s lives. They struggle with who they are and how to get through life after family abandons them, spending years in an orphanage and then college to be free of other’s help. Each girl has her own demand of life, very different from the other, and each one remembers from the age of loss. “Trying to catch memories of mama felt like trying to hold rain.” (173)

The story begins with Merry (the youngest) and Lulu’s (the oldest) father killing their mother, stabbing Merry and trying to kill himself. From the first page, my throat constricted and I cried for these two girls.

Essentially, Mama regarded me as a miniature hand server:

Grab me a Pepsi, Lulu.

Get the milk for your sister’s cereal.

Go to the store and buy me a pack of Winstons.

Then one day she upped the stakes:

Don’t let Daddy in the apartment.

Each chapter is Merry and Lulu’s POV of how they see the world, their father, and how they cope with life. Lulu, the oldest and practical thinker, tries to bury the past and makes plans to better their lives—it’s her survival mechanism. Merry, the youngest and emotional child, tries to please her father by visiting and relies on her sister’s direction. Many times they are at odds for their feelings toward their daddy. Lulu wants nothing to do with him while Merry feels obligated because daddy has no one else. How they deal with their father is how they deal with life; one wants to be free of the past and the other can’t let go.

The Murderer’s Daughters reveals the struggles and sadness when horror strikes a home. It shows the after effects of how a family has to pick up the pieces and carry on; some unable to glue the pieces together; and some tossing them away. As Merry said, “Did he know that sometimes I hated people so much it burned?” (40)

I highly recommend The Murderer’s Daughters. You won’t be disappointed.