Friday, October 15, 2021

Freedom To Choose

 

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of sci-fi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. One of the things I have loved most about being an indie author is the freedom to choose what I write, when I publish, working with an editor and cover designer who I love and adore (and who has a real talent for turning my random asks on covers into something truly gorgeous and sometimes something totally unexpected yet perfect), and not having to write to trends. Of course, that has its downside. I'm certainly not a best seller! 

But I don't think I could write any other way. And it's led to me writing all kinds of things I never imagined I would write, like a zombie romance and a paranormal holiday romance. And I fought writing that zombie story for weeks!  

In the end, you have to do what makes you happy. Or at least whatever will make the characters shouting in your head shut up! 😆

And so in honour of the season, her are the two stories I mentioned, both perfect for Halloween.


Welcome to Peaceville, population 2067 and rising...from the grave...

Luke Chester has had enough. He’s the school geek, the girls laugh at him, he’s lost his dead-end job at the pizza place, and in the midst of the world’s messiest divorce his parents don’t even know he exists. An overdose of his mom’s tranquilizers and a stomach full of whiskey should solve all his problems...

But they don’t. Instead, Luke finds himself booted out of the afterlife for not dying a natural death, with nowhere to go but back to his recently vacated corpse and reality. How the hell is he going to pass for one of the living without someone trying to blow his brains out for being one of the undead?

And it just gets worse. He’s got to fight his own desperate craving to consume the living, evade the weird supernatural hunter who’s having a field day with the new undeads rising, and there’s this creepy black shadow following him around. Add to that the distraction of female fellow undead Annabelle burning to avenge her own murder, and clearly there’s no rest for the wicked. Jeez, all he wanted to do was R.I.P.

A YA zombie story, previously published by Lycaon Press, 20th August 2014. Warning - contains bad language and moderate gore.

When love comes home...

Twelve months ago, Hal's world crashed and burned, taking the love of his life with it. He's waited all year for that one special night when the souls of the departed come home, hoping his candle will summon back one in particular to heal his broken heart. But the forbidden knowledge he's learned could call something far worse, and put more than his own soul at risk...

A Paranormal Romance short story.

Book links.

2 comments:

Judith Ashley said...

Oh Pippa, you have the best scary covers! and best terrifying stories! I'm so glad you share them with the world.

Maggie Lynch said...

Pippa, I love your reason for being indie: "... the freedom to choose what I write, when I publish, working with an editor and cover designer who I love and adore (and who has a real talent for turning my random asks on covers into something truly gorgeous and sometimes something totally unexpected yet perfect), and not having to write to trends."

That really encapsulates the positive selection of being indie. Those of us who do not write to trends, and those of us who genre hop, count on that freedom to get those stories into the world.

I love the way your imagination works in taking something like zombies and putting it into a different context around choices, emotional sabotage and love. Who else could have put that together?

Happy Halloween.