Blog Tour Mad World: Epidemic by Samaire Provost Review & Excerpt

Mad World: Epidemic by Samaire Provost
(Mad World, #1)
Release Date: July 28, 2012
Publisher: Amazon; 160 pages

The Black Plague is ancient history. It killed 100 million people nearly seven centuries ago, halfway around the world from the technologically advanced research center at Stanford University. Scientists there have recently begun examining samples of bone marrow from plague-infected corpses unearthed in Europe. All the necessary safeguards are in place. What could go wrong? Alyssa and Jake are away with their class on a highly anticipated year-end trip to Broadway with their senior acting class when all hell breaks loose at home. Traveling back, and trying to find their families, they encounter deadly results. Riots are breaking out. People are being evacuated. And they have no idea what's happening to their families. Horrific ordeals, heart-pounding tragedy, and chance encounters harden them for what lies ahead. Faced with tormenting decisions, they're forced to follow their instinct for survival at any cost - even when the cost is a heart-wrenching decision of life or death. A harrowing adventure of frightening discoveries, horrifying confrontations and narrow escapes in Epidemic, the first installment of the Mad World series. Find out what's got everyone so terrified.

Have I mentioned before how obsessed I am with Zombies? Well, if I haven't or you haven't heard, I AM! Love Love Love them! So much, my brother bought me a shirt for Christmas that says "The hardest thing about a Zombie Apocalypse is pretending I'm not excited". So, yeah, I'm pretty obsessed! With that said, onto my review!

Actually, when I first got introduced to this book, I had no idea it was about Zombies. Maybe I am niave but I read black plague and that's what I thought, massive death, but in what form, I didn't really think too much about it, all I knew is I wanted to read this book. To my happy surprise it was about zombies, and they are zombies because of a very interesting twist involving the black plague, which I will let you all read the book to find out!

I love how things int his book start out normal when all this craziness goes down. A lot of movies/books do start this way, but sometimes it happens so fast you are jus tlike BAM hit int he face with an apocalyptic event. Not the case here. This book explores what can go through ones mind when dealing with something life threading can happen. The story doesn't just focus around one person, but a group of students and even though most of the perspective is from Alyssa's POV, you really get a sense of what it is like for everyone. I love that in this book, just out of natural instinct, Alyssa seems to become the leader of the group, and no one seems to object. I am also very interested to see how the relationship between Alyssa and JAcob develops, it is hinted here and there, little sweet moments that happen, but I'm curious to see how a love story can blossom out of such chaos.

Things seem to escalate fast in this book, as I'd imagine would also happen if this truly happened, but so far they seem to be handling things okay, with a few causalities along the way, these kids are out to find answers to why their fallen friends/family have died, and do what they can to stop it. Pick up this book, you will not be disappointed.

Mad World: Epidemic Excerpt:


“Oh, my God,” Caitlin whispered next to me.

Twitter was wild with news. Devastating news. People were still trapped at the university. There was some kind of assault going on, police and something else. Family members were trying to reach the campus, but the roads had been closed. One person had gotten through on a dirt bike, only to be stopped by… something. His friends tweeted that he was down. It was hard to get a fix on exactly what was going on in Palo Alto. It was clear that the university had been under assault, and that the assault had spread to the city itself.

“What the hell’s going on?” Conner asked. He crouched behind DeAndre and read along with us.

It wasn’t clear at all, except that Palo Alto was a war zone. Tweets were coming fast and furious from users claiming to be at or near the university. They sounded desperate. It seemed like the infection had spread, but people weren’t tweeting about sick people, they were tweeting about assaults. But by whom? The police? I typed in @PaloAltoPolice and started reading. It seemed like the police were nearly overwhelmed by the chaos, spread very thin, and barely keeping up with what was happening around them. Whatever it was, it was happening very fast, and it seemed to be spiraling out of control. When I refreshed, I saw a disturbing call for help to the Crescent Park area and beyond, past Gateway and reaching to the airport.

“This is spreading quickly,” I said quietly.

“Check CNN again,” said Caitlin. I clicked on the tab and refreshed the screen. “Oh, no.”
A new story had loaded. They were evacuating a huge area. San Francisco was a little less than 35 miles from Palo Alto. They were evacuating San Francisco, San Jose, and as far south as Salinas. To the east, the police were asking for the area surrounding Modesto to evacuate. Fresno was about 165 miles away from Palo Alto, but I could see where this was going. The impacted circles were widening. At this rate, Fresno would be emptied within a day, maybe sooner.

Author Bio:
Born naked. Clothed and fed shortly thereafter by adoring parents who looked on in bemusement as their daughter became a reading, writing, free-spirited, feral, animal loving, bleeding-heart chocolate lover who laughs easily. Samaire Provost is a California writer of Young Adult novels. Her love of paranormal stories, odd plots, and unique tales as well as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, E.A.Poe, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Stephen King has deeply influenced her writing. 

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