How Does The Living Dead Compare To Other Zombie Novels?

As Jastrelle's golden girl, I draw lots to pick my groom, and fate finally hands me Felix Ledger, the childhood sweetheart I've wanted forever. During the impromptu wedding, a funeral convoy belonging to a scion of a rich family in Jastrelle passes right outside. I hate the omen. Felix laughs, pulls me into his arms, and places the veil over my head himself. "I'll take it as a good omen. With you, I'm covered from first breath to last," he says. His adoptive sister, Winnie Ledger, hears him, bursts into tears, and bolts outside. The funeral convoy runs her down, and she dies. Felix barely reacts. Three years later, Dad is framed, driven into bankruptcy, and falls gravely ill. He dies, and I lose everything. At the funeral, Felix sends everyone off, shoves me into the open grave, and buries me alive. He spits, "You rigged everything to get me. You left Winnie ruined. She bolted outside, and that funeral convoy ran her down. For three years, remorse has eaten me alive. I want you torn apart! "With your last protector gone, I can finally make you suffer a hundredfold the pain Winnie felt and ease my hatred!" When I open my eyes, I'm back at the groom-selection ceremony. Dad smiles as he hands me the lots. I shake my head, look out the window, and point at the funeral convoy passing outside. "I'm not choosing anyone. I'll marry that dead man!"

"Her mom's a witch. Her dad's a demon.And she just wants to be ordinary.Being part of a demon raising is way less exciting than it sounds.Sydlynn Hayle's teen life couldn't be more complicated. Trying to please her coven is all a fantasy while the adventure of starting over in a new town and fending off a bully cheerleader who hates her are just the beginning of her troubles. What to do when delicious football hero Brad Peters--boyfriend of her cheer nemesis--shows interest? If only the darkly yummy witch, Quaid Moromond, didn't make it so difficult for her to focus on fitting in with the normal kids despite her paranormal, witchcraft laced home life. Forced to take on power she doesn't want to protect a coven who blames her for everything, only she can save her family's magic.If her family's distrust doesn't destroy her first.Hayle Coven Novels is created by Patti Larsen, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author."

When the earthquake hit, I found myself buried under the rubble, barely clinging to life. My wife, Meghan Hudson, charges into the collapsing office building without hesitation. However, the person she rescues is Gerald Parker, the new technical specialist at my company. Even as she hurries away with the rescue team, she doesn't spare me a single glance. Severely crushed and bleeding heavily, I'm rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. Yet, Meghan pours all her care and attention into Gerald, who barely has a scratch on him. In the end, I'm completely disheartened and pull out the divorce papers. Meghan goes berserk and tears them to shreds, thinking I'll give in like I always did. What she doesn't know is that this time, I'm truly exhausted.

Ryan is the Zombie King, the man who helped the zombies take over the human world. Now, he's on the hunt for the one human he can't forget. Lacey is on the run for her life from zombies trying to forget Ryan. She didn't know he was a zombie, and she can't help being conflicted over how she feels about him. Zombies aren’t the mindless creatures that humans thought of in their stories. They are intelligent and function like humans do, minus the human brains they need for food. Turns out that zombies come from a mutated gene that only activates after death. They have been around just as long as humans and now they rule the world. When Ryan finally finds Lacey and brings her to his kingdom their worlds collide once again and so do their feelings. Can Lacey forgive Ryan for abandoning her after using her? Can their love survive in the new world?

My husband, Luca, had a childhood sweetheart named Sophia. Years ago, during a brutal gang shootout, Sophia shielded him from the worst of the bloodshed, and since then, she had suffered from severe PTSD. Because of that, Luca would push aside family business every year and fly to our estate on a secluded island off the coast of Sicily to spend three months “helping her recover.” “Victoria, she lost her mind because of me,” he told me. “I’m responsible for her. I hope you can be magnanimous.” So, I nodded. And eventually, I got used to the fact that every year, my husband would disappear for three months to fulfill what he called a moral obligation. That was until the day I flew in without warning to inspect the family’s money-laundering network on that island and saw him. In the town square, under the bright Mediterranean sun, Luca was standing there with a five-year-old boy by his side. “Papa, how long do we have to hide on this island?” the child asked. “I want to go to New York. I want to see the Empire State Building.” Luca laughed gently and scooped him up in his arms. With his other hand, he held Sophia’s. “Antonio, be good,” he said affectionately. “Papa’s position is… complicated. When you turn eighteen and pass the family’s initiation ceremony, I’ll kill that woman and her dead old man. Then, I’ll take you back to New York to inherit the entire Corleone family.” I stood in the shadows, unseen. Slowly, I lit a cigarette. The smoke curled around me as their voices drifted over, the conversation getting more vicious as it went. Sophia leaned into his chest, her tone sweet and coy. “Luca, I’ve been with you for seven years without a name or a title. How much longer are our son and I supposed to live like ghosts?” Luca sighed. “I don’t have a choice. The old man in the Corleone family is still alive. I married Victoria just to get her territory. Don’t worry. I’ve been adding something to her milk every day. She’ll never get pregnant in this lifetime. My family bloodline will only continue through you.” The last thread of reason in my mind snapped. In the six years of marriage we shared, I had been infertile. I’d taken countless hormone injections to stimulate ovulation. I’d knelt in church and prayed more times than I could count. Yet, all along, the devil poisoning me was my own husband. The initial shock faded quickly into rage. I crushed out my cigarette and pulled out my phone. Then, I dialed my uncle, the family’s clean-up man. “Uncle Rocco,” I said calmly, “Luca betrayed me. He betrayed the family. Order a coffin in the finest black walnut for me, and make it large, large enough to fit a family of three.”

Her name was Cathedra. Leave her last name blank, if you will. Where normal people would read, "And they lived happily ever after," at the end of every fairy tale story, she could see something else. Three different things. Three words: Lies, lies, lies. A picture that moves. And a plea: Please tell them the truth. All her life she dedicated herself to becoming a writer and telling the world what was being shown in that moving picture. To expose the lies in the fairy tales everyone in the world has come to know. No one believed her. No one ever did. She was branded as a liar, a freak with too much imagination, and an orphan who only told tall tales to get attention. She was shunned away by society. Loveless. Friendless. As she wrote "The End" to her novels that contained all she knew about the truth inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, she also decided to end her pathetic life and be free from all the burdens she had to bear alone. Instead of dying, she found herself blessed with a second life inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, and living the life she wished she had with the characters she considered as the only friends she had in the world she left behind. Cathedra was happy until she realized that an ominous presence lurks within her stories. One that wanted to kill her to silence the only one who knew the truth.