What if Ghosts were Real? -- Guest Post

The Word Nerds are so pleased to introduce today's guest post from Sebastiene Elston about her book, Dead World. The Nerds read early chunks of the book and were enthused about it then and are delighted to showcase the finished product now.

This weekend, Dead World is free in the Amazon Kindle store. And to get you ready, we invited her to share some of how her thinking went to create this book.

What If Ghosts Were Real?
by Sebastiene Elston
Believe me. If someone could prove ghosts were real, it would change everything: how we view death, it would change religions, and it would change how we live each day. Immortality, in some form, would be proven. That knowledge would have a ripple effect that would eventually effect everyone and everything alive today.

Of course, it would be just our luck if it turned out the ghosts wanted to kill the living. Ever silver lining has a cloud, and every book needs a villain.

So, while other movie monsters like vampires and werewolves have had more movies made about them than anyone can count, I’ve never seen a ghost story that was... well, big. I have never seen a novel that dealt with the idea of ghosts on a national scale, which surprises me, because a "ghost" is a villain almost everyone understands.

So, I wrote that novel: Dead World. It’s the first book in the series of the same name. Just one book isn’t enough to contain this idea.

When people ask me what my book is about, I usually say, “It’s a really big ghost story.” They nod, but I know they don’t quite understand. It’s not a huge, doorstop of a book. (It’s a respectable 102,000 words, which is pretty standard.) What makes it big is that it’s about one family trying to survive while the entire country is slowly being killed by ghosts.

And just to be difficult, I didn’t make this novel an urban fantasy, either. The main character, Amber, isn’t gracing the cover wearing a cut-off shirt, carrying a sword/gun/knife/staff/ball of magic. She’s completely normal in every respect, except that she can clearly see the ghosts. That’s it. That’s the closest thing to a superpower she’s going to get.

The response I’ve been getting from readers is has been beyond anything I expected. I’ve had complete strangers writing 5-star reviews. How did that happen?

The good news is that you can get your own copy of Dead World free today at Amazon.com. Yes, the whole thing. Don’t have a Kindle? You can download the Kindle app onto your computer for free and read it there, if you’d like. But you might want to close your curtains, first. And take my sister’s advice. She won’t read it at night.

Apparently, if ghosts were real... it would be kind of scary.

And don't forget, this weekend, you can get your copy of Dead World for free through the Amazon Kindle Store.