Blog Tour: Diaries of the Damned by Alex Laybourne Review & Excerpt

Diaries of the Damned by Alex Laybourne
Release Date: February 19, 2014
Publisher: Vamptasy Publishing; 275 pagaes

The dead have risen and a desperate struggle for power has begun. The military are evacuating all survivors in passenger planes. With their destination unknown, one group of survivors, led by a journalist named Paul Larkin, decide to share their experiences with the hope that when combined, their stories will reveal some answers that the government had not been willing to give themselves.
Nine survivors have banded together, determined to tell their tale of survival. None of them realized that as they stood to tell their tales that they stood on the brink of discovering a conspiracy the likes of which the world has never seen.

Wow. This book was intense! I love me a good zombie book, for I love all things zombie, and this book did not disappoint at all.

This book was laid out with different survivor stories. Each chapter was someone else's story with a few mini chapters in between to connect them all together. Each account of the same event was very interesting and at the same time awesome. To see what other people did when the world basically ends is so cool, and was written very well. Moique's story was one of the stories that really got to me. Made me sick with how quickly people turned against each other and into barbaric animals.

The idea of Paul writing everyone's story to make a book for the future is a great intro into everyone's story and paints a sad and scary picture of the world, once zombie's have attacked. This book didn't hold back on gore, language, sensitivity nothing. Its a raw re-telling by all the survivors and I feel that makes this book feel more real and makes it so damn good!

Once we get towards the end, it becomes a story about the nine survivors and it didn't end how I expected, I thought that this was the only book,but makes me excited that there will be more. Amazing book, if you are a zombie lover, this is a must read book!!!

Trying the handle to no avail, Jessica looked around and grabbed a broken number plate from the car nearest her.

“Stand back,” she called. Not waiting for the child to listen and with no time to ask again, Jessica smashed the window and unlocked the door from the inside. She cringed as her hand brushed the hardened, cold skin of the child’s father. “It’s ok, I’ve got you. Come on, your safe with me.” She soothed, reaching inside the car to grab the child. The group of zombies were less than ten meters away, but their mangled limbs made any form of motion difficult and slow. Jessica knew she had time to save the kid. “Come on,” she urged, and as the child leaned forward, she grabbed the girl by the arms and yanked her free.

Jessica hugged the girl close to her and turned to run for the car, when she felt the child’s grip change. Her head was forced to the side by arms stronger than those of any living child. Jessica’s neck was exposed and had it not been for the hungry growl that the girl gave, she would have been bitten. Once again her natural survival instincts took over, reacting just quickly enough. She dropped the girl, and without waiting for a second opinion on the diagnosis, kicked out and sent the small body tumbling through the air. Her head hit the grill of the car she had been trapped in and the neck snapped from the whiplash effect of the impact.

Jessica ran and jumped back into the car, thankful that she hadn’t turned it off, yet equally aware of how foolish she had been. She gave one last look in the mirror as she drove away. The child had gotten to her feet and had given a slow and lumbering chase after the car. Her head was lopsided and twisted on an angle that meant she would forever walk with a tilt.

With her foot on the floor once more, Jessica sped toward the airport, hoping that she would not run across any more survivors. 

About the Author:
Born and raised in the coastal English town Lowestoft, it should come as no surprise (to those that have the misfortune of knowing this place) that I became a horror writer.
From an early age I was sent to schools which were at least 30 minutes drive away and so spent the most of my free time alone, as the friends I did have lived too far away for me to be able to hang out with them in the weekends or holidays.
I have been a writer as long as I can remember and have always had a vivid imagination. To this very day I find it all too easy to just drift away into my own mind and explore the world I create, where the conditions always seem to be just perfect for the cultivation of ideas, plots, scenes, characters and lines of dialogue everything basically, and when the time is right, I can simply pluck them from the allotment of my mind serve them up on the pages of whatever work is to be their home.
I am married and have four children and my biggest dream for them is that they grow up and spend their lives doing what makes them happy, whatever that is.

Links

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alex-Laybourne/212049612180183

Twitter : https://twitter.com/Vanplank

Blog: http://alexlaybourne.com/