'Cemetery Plot' by Alex Granados Blog Tour: Guest Post

Vanessa Hawthorne is a zombie. . .at least that was the plan. Miserable with her life, she agreed to participate in a fatal ritual that would transform her into one of the Living Dead. Instead, she wakes up decades later alive, unaged and living in a world overrun with graveyards.

But when a real estate tycoon finds out about Vanessa, he will stop at nothing to discover how she cheated death. He hopes that this knowledge will give him the power to resurrect the dead. The money he stands to make is incalculable. And he is willing to do whatever it takes — kidnapping, assault and even murder — to get the job done. Luckily for Vanessa, she has Mark Nimocks and his friend Emily to protect her. . . but at what costs?

A zombie apocalypse is in the works, and it will take a medium from the future to find a way to undo the end of the world. But can he actually help change the past? Or is the world fated to be destroyed no matter what?

     

Thank you so much to Girls *Heart* Books for having me. In my guest post today, I want to talk about some of the literature and media that has influenced me over the years.

I’m going to start way back. In elementary school, I used to get this book called “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” I don’t know if anybody remembers it, but it used to terrify me. It was one of those books full of urban legends, like the story of the guy who leaves his girlfriend in the car to investigate a spooky noise. He doesn’t come back, but the girlfriend hears a scratching noise on the top of the car, she’s terrified. And when she eventually investigates, she discovers that her boyfriend has been hanged (hung?) from a tree above the car.

Those stories really freaked me out. Then I got a Time-Life series on paranormal experiences. Every month, I would get a new volume detailing all the weird crap happening in the world that nobody could explain.

As far as movies are concerned, I went traditional in the horror genre. There was lots of Michael Myers, Jason from Friday the 13th and Freddy Krueger. But it was later in life that I really got into some of the more interesting horror/sci-fi alternatives out there.

I remember the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. I didn’t think much of it, but I watched it numerous times because I thought Kristy Swanson was hot. When the television show came out, I wrote it off immediately. If it was anything like the movie, I wasn’t interested.

I can’t remember what first made me watch an episode, but when I did, I was hooked. I became a dedicated Buffy watcher. It was the humor more than anything that drew me to the show. When Angel spun off, I started watching that too, and, in fact, I became a huge Joss Whedon fan in general. I watched Dollhouse on Netflix in a marathon two-week stretch with my wife. And I’m a big fan of Whedon’s movie The Cabin in the Woods. I still haven’t seen Avengers, but I’ve heard good things about it, even if it’s not Whedon’s usual fare.

I’ve always been a fan of Stephen King, but I stopped reading horror novels a few years ago. There are just too many interesting things happening in the sci-fi genre.

I think, more than anything, what led to me writing a zombie novel for my first book was the show “The Walking Dead.” I was watching it around the time I wrote the novel.

I’ve always been a fan of the zombie movies of George Romero. Hell, I even liked the remake of Dawn of the Dead. But The Walking Dead and the idea of a serialized zombie show really called out to something in me. The idea of exploring the zombie apocalypse and what it does to people, that’s just something I find interesting. You know, I have a hard enough time dealing with day to day life. It seems amazing to imagine surviving in a world overrun with zombies. What a terrifying proposition.

Anyway, the only other movie I want to mention is one that will probably have you all laughing at me. I love the Paranormal Activity movies. They freak me out. I think it has something to do with the fact that I have spent many a night walking through a dark house imagining some kind of creepy crawly or spooky specter sneaking up on me. There is nothing so scary as your imagination, and I feel like those movies really rely on your head to provide the scare tactics.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Cemetery Plot. You can buy it on Amazon.

Thanks for having me. 

Alex Granados is a producer for The State of Things on North Carolina Public Radio WUNC and the North Raleigh News Columnist for the regionally acclaimed News & Observer newspaper. Cemetery Plot is his first novel.

Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn't in time to switch majors.

Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, walking his dog Zoey and late night dance parties with his wife are some of his favorite hobbies. Alex still doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.