Guest Author: Elise Abram

Elise AbramI am excited to welcome author Elise Abram, who is celebrating the release of her new novel, The Revenant.

He wears neither cape nor cowl, but Zulu is a superhero, nevertheless.

Raised from the dead as a revenant more than a century ago, Zulu possesses superhuman speed, undetectable stealth, and a keen intellect. His only companion is Morgan the Seer, an old man cursed with longevity and the ability to see the future. Zulu has spent a lifetime training with Morgan to save the people in his visions from certain and violent death.

Malchus, Morgan’s long dead twin brother and a powerful necromancer, returns to the living to settle a score with Morgan. Believing Morgan responsible for his death and out for revenge, Malchus raises an army of undead minions to hunt Morgan down. As Malchus closes in on Morgan and his charge, they soon realize the people most in need of saving are themselves.

Make sure you stick around to the end. We’ll be giving away an ecopy of The Revenant.
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Zombified! The Undead Trinity

Zombies are real!

No, this isn’t a doomsday alert.

I first learned of zombies in University where, while majoring in Anthropology, I took a course called “Magic, Witchcraft and Religion”. In Haiti there are practitioners of Vodoun (often referred to as Voodoo) and the priests are able to zombify people by feeding them a chemical which puts them in a near-death state. Upon revival, the person is highly susceptible to suggestion, and, believing they have died and been brought back to life, enter a state of hypnosis and live a life of servitude to their “masters”.

Most sources agree that the shambling, rotting, throngs of undead corpses who feed off the living zombie archetype owes their origin to George Romero’s portrayal of zombies in the 1968 classic film, “Night of the Living Dead.” It is these same zombies that are depicted in literature like M.T. Anderson’s Feed and in graphic novels and on television in shows like “The Walking Dead.” These zombies have no soul, no conscience. Their only imperative is to eat. And like the toads my husband keeps, if it’s not moving, it doesn’t recognize it as food.

A few fictions portray zombies as sentient. On “Being Human,” when Sally’s corpse is resurrected by a witch, she learns that she must eat live flesh to prevent her body from decomposing. “In the Flesh” documents the story of Kieran Walker, a young man resurrected after committing suicide. Kieran and his fellow zombies wear make-up and contact lenses to blend in with the living, They take medication to prevent them from returning to their natural state as archetypal, rotting, flesh-eating automatons so they can pick up their lives where they left off before they died.

All three of these zombie archetypes are portrayed in The Revenant. Having died and come back to life, revenant Zulu is essentially a sentient zombie, though he is able to maintain his humanity (and his soul) without medication or the craving for human brains. Necromancer Malchus spends most of the novel trying to raise an army of undead minions, but no matter what he does, he is unable to reanimate corpses who do not crave living flesh. Kat, the empathy, falls prey to Malchus’s ability to temporarily charm the living when she falls prey to Malchus’s power of suggestion, and is hypnotized into telling him things she’d rather keep to herself.

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Meet Elise Abram!

Teacher of English and Computer Studies by day, wife and mother by night and author whenever she can steal some time, Elise is the proud author of Phase Shift, The Mummy Wore Combat Boots, and Throwaway Child, available on Amazon and KoboBooks. She pens a blog about literature, popular culture and the human condition whenever the muse moves her. Elise’s fourth book, a young adult paranormal thriller entitled The Revenant is now available for purchase on-line and in book stores everywhere!

EAbram-RevenantContact Info: Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads | Amazon

Want to purchase Elise’s novels?
Revenant
The Mummy Wore Combat Boots
Throwaway Child
Phase Shift
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Contest Time!

Thank you Elise for taking the time to stop by Literary Escapism!

Elise is giving away an ecopy of Revenant. Contest ends

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.