Saturday, February 8, 2014

Review: Rachel Higginson's "Love and Decay" Season Two Episode One

Title: Love and Decay Season 2 Episode 1
Author: Rachel Higginson

Blurb:

Zombies- as if that wasn’t enough to ruin any girl’s dream of a happily ever after.

In the last two years, Reagan Willow has survived Zombies, kidnapping, being held prisoner, more Zombies, car crashes, a dangerous stalker, no showers and most importantly Zombies. Life is complicated in the Zombie Apocalypse but Reagan is surrounded by friends that have become family, a settlement she can trust and a man that would do anything to keep her alive.

Last spring, Kane Allen tried to take Reagan away from all those people she’s come to love so fiercely. She escaped, though, and in the aftermath of that traumatic experience, she’s learning to live with the guilt and consequences of her actions.

Life has moved on since Kane and his father Matthias attacked the compound, but that doesn’t mean it’s been any safer.

On a routine supply-run, Reagan finds out exactly how unsafe she is

Reagan may have survived Kane’s captivity, but can she escape a Zombie ambush or retaliation from The Colony? Matthias promised war, and he’s keeping his word.

The Zombie Apocalypse has never been so dangerous.

Love and Decay, Episode One is the first episode in Season Two of a novella series in a Dystopian Romance about Zombies, the end of the world and finding someone to share it with.

This story takes place over multiple episodes, with a release date every two weeks. Approximately 20,000 words.
 
 
Be sure to add Love and Decay to Goodreads 
 
 
Buy Links: (for all of Rachel's books)
 
 
 
 
 
 
My Review:
 
Rachel brings us back into her post apocalyptic world baptized in blood.  Seriously y'all prepare yourselves, Love and Decay starts with tons of blood and doesn't slow down. As always, Rachel picks up right where she left us just in case you're super ADHD (like me). All coming from  Reagan's point of view makes this recap not only entertaining but very sarcastic. Are y'all ready to jump back into the  Parker's blood and gut covered zombie world?


Me when I opened my e mail!

 
After escaping death and Kane (not sure which is worse, although Kane is a hottie) Reagan is dealing with the emotional trauma that comes after dealing with a crazy person. Meanwhile, the Parkers and the girls are trying to live life as close to normal as possible in the safety of Gabe's compound. Rachel, as always, is a pro at adding little nuggets of sweetness into the misery  of zombie life.  Look for Hendrix comforting Reagan and pledging his love to her *sigh*  and of course the hilariously dry comments from Harrison.
 
It's Reagan, Haley, Hendrix and Nelson's turn to go on a supply run. Gabe gives them a map and what starts off as a normal outing turns out to become a nightmare. Everything goes according to plan until the group reaches the grocery store.  What they thought was an odd smell turned out to be a deadly new weapon. They narrowly escape the store only to face a deadly roadblock.
 
Reagan just wants to get back to the comfort of the compound and take a nice hot shower. Just when she's able to relax and feel safe, Reagan receives a little "gift" that shakes her to the core and makes her question the safety of her new home.


Me at the end of the book!! 
 
What I Thought:
 
WOW!!! Rachel is truly in her element with this book! Love and Decay is  a fast paced, grip your iPad thrill ride you hope never ends! I didn't realize how much I missed all these characters until I was able to rejoin them in their exciting adventure.  Rachel has a way of grabbing the reader by the shirt and yanking them into her story and not letting them go until the very end, which always ends in a HUGE cliffhanger by the way!!
 
 
 
Just in case you forgot what the characters looked like......


This is Hendrix Parker the eldest 24 *sigh*
(Chase Crawford)  

 

Reagan (Victoria Justice)
The sassy cheerleader

 

Vaughn Parker the next eldest at 23 *Sigh again*
(Stephen Amell)

 


Haley (Holland Roden)
Reagan's BFF

Nelson Parker age 21 *sigh again, again*
Colten Hayes
Harrison Parker 17
(Lucas Till)
 
King Parker, the youngest brother at 15
Luke Benward
Page Parker the youngest child at 8
Alexa Gerasimovich





I want one of these SOOOO bad!!
 
  

My Favorite Quotes:
 
 
"I get that you're damaged, but you are killing my beauty sleep."
~Harrison
 
 
He smelled like home; he smelled like love.
~Reagan 
 
 
"Do you guys want to explain to Page where babies come from or should I?"
~Vaughan
 
 
We cheer together, we die together.
~Reagan
 
 
"Reagan, could you stop ogling me until after you use the water?"
~Hendrix
 
 
"Haley, I give you permission to ogle me any time you'd like."
~Nelson
 
 
"You guys are super sweet." "But  we're under attack again, so if you could wrap this up that would be just fabulous."
~Haley
 
 
"By me, Reagan. Please, always stay by me."
~Hendrix
 
 
"We need a vacation."
~Reagan
 
 
"This time, when I closed my eyes, I saw only peace and safety; I saw love and hope for a future that we would protect with our lives, that we would protect so fiercely and devotedly that death and rotten things of this world could not touch."
~Reagan
 
 
 
OTHER WORKS:
 
 



Star Crossed Series




Reckless Magic (book 1)

16 year old Eden Matthews has been in and out of private schools for the last two years. Kingsley is her last chance to finish high school and she is determined to simply do that. But when she meets Kiran Kendrick and her world opens to something she thought only existed in fairy tales, she's unsure what her future will hold. Suddenly she is captivated by a boy who seems to be the source of all of her problems and struggling to rescue her best friend from a foreign prison. When attempts are made on Kiran's life, Eden alone must save him. Thrust into a world that is more make-believe than reality, Eden has to find her own destiny without losing those she loves most. Reckless is an intricate story of mystery, adventure, magic and love. Eden Matthews is an unlikely heroine set on a path to save the world and her loved ones before its too late.



Hopeless Magic (book 2)

After returning home from Romania, and successfully saving her best friend Lilly, Eden Matthews must now come to terms with her future as an Immortal. She is in love with the Crowned Prince, but he is betrothed to someone else.
Her family desperately wants her to join their rebellion, but that would mean fighting against her one, true love, Kiran Kendrick. She must fight off assassins that want her dead, an Immortal rite of passage that takes her to India and a deadly disease that no one has thus far survived. Danger seems to lurk around every corner as Eden Matthews struggles to keep her true identity a secret and protect those that she loves.
Eden must find a way to be with Kiran, or turn her back on him forever and fight to save her people. Hopeless Magic is the second installment of the Star-Crossed series.



Fearless Magic (book 3)

Eden Matthew's world is in shambles. Her grandfather viciously murdered, her twin brother held without magic, and her best friends imprisoned, all at the hands of the one man that was supposed to love her for eternity. She has been betrayed, and now she is being hunted by a king that wants her dead. Eden must pick up the pieces of her life and stand alone against the tyranny that threatens to destroy her world. Alone she must find a way to rebuild the Resistance, locate her missing parents, save her loved ones and take down the monarchy. Everything is against her, including forbidden feelings of a love that she thought was buried. She has declared war and now stands on the precipice of defeat. Losing is not an option however, and Eden must find a way to overcome her emotions, fight through her pain and restore the magic to her kingdom. Fearless Magic is the third installment of The Star-Crossed Series.



Endless Magic (book 4)

In the final installment of the Star-Crossed Series, we find Eden Matthews a prisoner in the very household she set out to destroy. She is without magic and engaged to the same boy who betrayed her and everyone she loves. With her wedding looming on the horizon, conditions for her people continue to worsen and her goal of offering her kingdom freedom seems further away than ever. Her brother is free however, and building a Rebellion that hopes to rescue her. Eden's parents are working with the Resistance and inside the Citadel Eden finds more allies than she thought possible. However, there is more at stake for Eden than just an unwanted marriage. Her heart is on the line too, as she fights the pressures of palace life, the prejudice ingrained in her people and a seemingly unbeatable king. Endless Magic is the fourth and final installment of the Star-Crossed Series.



Reluctant King (book 5)

Avalon St. Andrews has endured Hell and war in an attempt to secure freedom and immortality for his people. Raised and conditioned to be both warrior and leader, he now sits on a throne with his sister Eden, governing the Kingdom in peace. While his people enjoy the benefits of his struggle and loss, he is restless, bored and alone.
Avalon is summoned to fight to save his people once more as the Kingdom is threatened by a brand new evil. In addition to reigning in a kingship he doesn’t want, he is fighting against the very people he has fought so hard to protect. They are determined to throw away their newfound freedom and their newfound leaders.
In this war and in this kingship he feels alone. And for the first time he feels hollow. That is until Amelia Cartier shows up, invading his every thought and shaking up his carefully controlled world.

 
Love and Decay Season 1 Episodes 1-12
 
Zombies- as if that wasn’t enough to ruin any girl’s dream of a happily ever after.

A vaccination gone oh so wrong and a huge portion of the world’s population was turned into Zombies. Reagan Willow is forced out of her home when her parents become casualties of the horrid Zombie Apocalypse. With the help of her best friend Haley, they’ve become somewhat of experts on surviving the dangers of a world thrust into chaos and decay.

Reagan and Haley are on a vague mission to find somewhere safe to live out the remainders of their terrifying life when they stumble upon the Parkers, a pack of brothers that seem to have the survival thing down in a much more efficient and successful way than Reagan could ever have imagined. They are also protecting their eight year old sister, Page, and will do anything to keep her safe.

The brothers decide that Reagan and Haley need help with being kept safe as well, and as a group they set off to find the Zombie-free utopia Reagan is dreaming of.

Zombies are a daily problem, constantly threatening the lives of their group, but they’re not the only peril on the journey ahead. Militia groups of power hungry men are also a constant concern. And settlements of paranoid, suspicious people turn out to be just as hazardous.

Danger looms over every inch of the way, but Reagan, Haley and the Parkers are determined to get to their goal and remain together. Soon the Parkers become more to Reagan than just traveling companions and more than friendship starts to develop between her and Hendrix, the second oldest brother.

But at the end of the world, nothing can be as simple as life and death. Now, Reagan is going to have to schedule falling in love between hunting and surviving. Hopefully she can last long enough to find out if true love can still exist when everything else has started to fall apart.

Love and Decay, Volume One, is a compilation of the first six episodes in a twelve episode season. It is a Dystopian Romance Novella Series about Zombies, the end of the world and finding someone to share it with.

This story takes place over multiple episodes, with a release date every two weeks. Each episode is approximately 20,000 words
 
 
 
 
 


 
Avalon St. Andrews has endured Hell and war in an attempt to secure freedom and immortality for his people. Raised and conditioned to be both warrior and leader, he now sits on a throne with his sister Eden, governing the Kingdom in peace. While his people enjoy the benefits of his struggle and loss, he is restless, bored and alone.
Avalon is summoned to fight to save his people once more as the Kingdom is threatened by a brand new evil. In addition to reigning in a kingship he doesn’t want, he is fighting against the very people he has fought so hard to protect. They are determined to throw away their newfound freedom and their newfound leaders.
In this war and in this kingship he feels alone. And for the first time he feels hollow. That is until Amelia Cartier shows up, invading his every thought and shaking up his carefully controlled world.


A life not her own—A future already decided.

Every facet of Ivy Pierce’s life is meticulously planned out and plotted. Cynical and jaded by sixteen, Ivy’s only hope is to escape the legacy she was born into.

She has a plan, a carefully thought out, feasible plan. She just has to play by the rules until everything falls into place. Unfortunately as predictable as her life can be, she never sees Ryder Sutton coming. He tumbles into her life unimpressed and untouched by her and the life she lives. He’s an enigma to her. A gorgeous, frustrating, sincere mystery and a complete phenomenon in the ugly world she lives in.

What blooms between them is a fiercely intense attraction that cannot be ignored. Even though they would both be better off without each other—Even if both their lives depend on staying apart.

Stella is a Star, sent by a Council of Elders to live on Earth and protect the planet from the Darkness, a terrifying evil that would suck the good from every living thing and leave the planet empty and desolate. She has until her twenty-fifth birthday before the Protectorship becomes hers and Earth is left solely her responsibility.
Stella’s fate goes on fast forward as she struggles to balance the rest of high school with the duties of protecting humanity from the deadliest kind of evil.
With her parents and Seth, the boy intended to be her Counterpart, by her side she faces down demons and fallen angels in an effort to protect the last inhabited planet in the universe.
But evil is not her only enemy. She also fights her future as she tries to decide if she’s willing to give up her human relationships, especially that of her best friend Tristan, in order to save humanity.
 
 
 
Stella is a Star, sent by a Council of Elders to live on Earth and protect the planet from the Darkness, a terrifying evil that would suck the good from every living thing and leave the planet empty and desolate. She has until her twenty-fifth birthday before the Protectorship becomes hers and Earth is left solely her responsibility.
Stella’s fate goes on fast forward as she struggles to balance the rest of high school with the duties of protecting humanity from the deadliest kind of evil.
With her parents and Seth, the boy intended to be her Counterpart, by her side she faces down demons and fallen angels in an effort to protect the last inhabited planet in the universe.
But evil is not her only enemy. She also fights her future as she tries to decide if she’s willing to give up her human relationships, especially that of her best friend Tristan, in order to save humanity.
 
 

Written with Lila Felix

Cami Montgomery stole a car and smashed it into the front of a building in upscale Beverly Hills after a lousy date with the epitome of sleaze balls. The worst part, her parents are following through on threats after this latest plea for attention. Banished from her L.A. paradise and plunged into the Appalachian Mountains with her industrious aunt and uncle, Cami is about to find out how precious life really is.


Stockton Wright has been thrust into a hard life. He sacrifices everything to give his family and community what they need. He’s exhausted from life and work—and he’s only twenty four. What he needs is some change, and some sunshine. Even he will agree to that. He just doesn’t expect to find it in a stuck up, pompous, entitled Californian.


Cami bursts into Stockton’s life like wildfire, consuming all his thoughts and tangling him in her web. What starts out as a contentious rivalry evolves into a desire neither of them expected. When hammer meets metal, will they crack under pressure or be forged as one?


Cami and Stockton might just end up being exactly what the other one needs, but first their love will have to be drawn out in fire.




COMING SOON!!!!
 
 
 
 
The Star-Crossed Series: The Relentless Warrior, Book 6 - January, 2014

 Breathless Magic, Star-Crossed Series Novella - February, 14th 2014
The Redeemable Prince, Book 7 - September, 2014
 

The Starbright Series

Sunburst, Book 2 - Out Now!!!!

Firelight, Book 3 - March, 2014

Super Nova, Book 4 - January, 2015

Star Fight, Book 5 - May, 2015

 


The Siren Series
The Fall, Book 2 - February, 2014

The Heart, Book 3 - November, 2014

 

Bet in the Dark Series

Beckett's Book still untitled - TBA, 2014 (NA)

Grayson's Book still untitled - March, 2015

Lennox's Book, Still untitled - August, 2015

 

Contemporary Stand-Alone

The Five Stages of Falling in Love - TBA, 2014 (Adult)
 


Co-Author Project with Lila Felix

Brazing - TBA, 2014
 

Love & Decay, A Novella Series

Releases every other Friday

Love and Decay, Season Two- February 7th 2014

Love and Decay, Season Three- October, 10th 2014

 
 
 

 About my girl Rachel:


was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent my college years traveling the world. I fell in love with Eastern Europe, Paris, Indian Food and the beautiful beaches of Sri Lanka. But I came back home to marry my high school sweetheart and now I spend my days raising our growing family. In those few spare moments I have, I am either reading or writing Young Adult Fiction, because I am obsessed with it.
Five other things I'm obsessed with right now:
1. My Kuerig Coffee Machine. Genius.
2. 90's music. Oh man, the 90's speak right to my soul.
3. Chocolate smelling body wash. Who doesn't want to walk around smelling like a bakery?
4. Colored Chapstick. And if it's Dr. Pepper Flavored, that's kind of my nirvana.
And.
5. Spotify. It's like the mixed-tape of this generation and I have probably three hundred hours of music on there. Can't get enough
 
Where to Stalk Rachel:









 

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