Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Dead Spots by Rhiannon Frater | 5 Most Random Spontaneous Things

Welcome to our stop on Dead Spots tour for Rhiannon Frater. This tour is hosted by Jean Book Nerd Tour.

Dead Spots
Author: Rhiannon Frater
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Horror
Released: February 24th 2015
Review Source: Tor Books

In the dead spots, dreams become reality, terror knows your name, and nightmares can kill you.

The stillbirth of Mackenzie's son destroyed her marriage. Grieving, Mac reluctantly heads for her childhood home to seek refuge with her mother, who constantly reminds her of life's dangers.

Driving across Texas, Mac swerves to avoid hitting a deer...and winds up in a dead spot, a frightening place that lies between the worlds of the living and the dead. If they can control their imaginations, people can literally bring their dreams to life—but most are beseiged by fears and nightmares which pursue them relentlessly.

Mackenzie's mother and husband haunt her, driving her to the brink of madness. Then she hears a child call for help and her maternal instincts kick into overdrive. Grant, Mac's ally in the dead spots, insists Johnny is a phantom, but the boy seems so real, so alive....

As the true horrors of the dead spots are slowly revealed, Mackenzie realizes that time is running out. But exits from the dead spots are nearly impossible to find, and defended by things almost beyond imagination.

There are times that I read books without knowing anything about it. One of these is Dead Spot, let alone that it is a horror book. Which I usually do not read. I love scary movies but reading horror genre is not my thing. I like the visual effects and sometimes books do not do this justice. But Dead Spot did a great job… It is full of actions, scary monsters and general mayhem.

Dead Spot is a place of fear. A place full of nightmares. Full of monsters. The last place Mackenzie expected to be. After an incredibly tough time, in which she loses her baby and finds herself divorced. This is depressing and morbid. One day she stumbled upon an abandoned cafe minutes after nearly having a car accident. Seriously, things just cannot get any better for her. But this is just the beginning of her worst nightmares. This abandon cafe is one of the many of the Dead Spot - a place in between the living and the afterlife.

With everything that happened to Mackenzie, feeling compassion towards her is understandable. Now cheering and loving her is something I did not expect to do. I loved how she transformed to a brave person. She faced her worst fears. She did not let any of the creatures in Dead Spot take her down. With this new spark of bravery, she was able to find herself again.

Dead Spot was a great read. It was creepy, gruesome and the terror was real. Well done, Rhiannon!

5 Most Random spontaneous thing you've ever done.

I’m not spontaneous by nature, so this was a tough list! I tend to overthink EVERYTHING. But I did realize there were a few moments in my life where I acted without thought and it ended well.

1. I wrote a zombie short story called Tiny Fingers and posted it online on a whim. It ended up becoming the opening of The First Days, the first book in the As The World Dies trilogy.

2. I once jumped off a subway train in Manhattan when I spotted a clown inside. My friends dragged me back inside before the doors shut and the train departed. I kept my eyes closed the whole ride. (I’m afraid of clowns.) That clown was the basis for the one in Dead Spots down to his scary blue wig and outfit.

3. While pumping gas at the corner station one day, I heard what I thought was a bird crying in a bush. For some reason I said, “Hello?” A tiny black and white kitten popped out and ran right to me. I named him Zim.

4. I was burned out on the local goth club in Austin, and decided not to go anymore. For some weird reason, I suddenly felt the compulsion to go one last time. That was the night I met my future husband.

5. Though we don’t remember who suggested it, my husband and I decided to get married on Halloween 2007, giving us barely a month and half to prepare. We weren’t even engaged at the time.

Rhiannon Frater was born and raised a Texan. Though she has lived in various towns all over the state, she finally settled in Austin, Texas where she met her husband and worked as a governmental consultant.

During her travels for her job, she was inspired to write the story of two women fleeing into the Texas Hill Country in an attempt to survive the zombie apocalypse. Originally published as a serial online under the title As The World Dies, she later self-published the series in three novels to satisfy the many fans of the story. The first novel in the series, The First Days, won the 2008 Dead Letter Award for Best Book (Fiction). The second book, Fighting To Survive won the 2009 Dead Letter Award in the same category.

The As The World Dies books were purchased by Tor in 2010.The first book, The First Days, was released in July 2011 and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The second, Fighting To Survive, was released on November 8, 2011. The third book, Siege, was released in April 2012.

She is also the author of over a dozen independent works such as The Last Bastion Of The Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog). Her next novel for Tor, Dead Spots, will be published in 2014.

Rhiannon continues to live in Austin, Texas with her husband and is now a full-time writer.

She is represented by Hannah Brown Gordon of the Foundry Literary + Media and Brandy Rivers of Gersh Agency.