Author Joss Ware talks about her new series (& a Giveaway)

Author Joss Ware, an electrifying new voice in paranormal romance, has readers fascinated and asking for more with the first book in the Awakening Heroes series, Beyond the Night.

In this story : When Dr. Elliott Drake wakes from a mysterious fifty-year sleep, he finds the world as he knew it is gone forever. His only ally is the mysterious Jade, a woman who has seen enough to know to trust no one–until Elliott. Now they must work together to survive in this dark new world that will that them beyond danger…beyond desire…and lead them to the light of a new day.

MOTHER NATURE FOR THE WIN

by Joss Ware

Two years ago, I started working on a series of paranormal romances set in a post-apocalyptic world. As I imagined what that world would look like, I did research to see what would happen if the majority of the human race was destroyed during a series of cataclysmic events.

I’d always had the impression that a post-apocalyptic world would be a sort of Mad Max and the Thunderdome environment—stark, dry, barren—but as I delved deeper into my research, I learned that Mother Nature is one heck of a formidable opponent and that she wouldn’t take the apocalypse lying down. An example is in Chernobyl, which has been abandoned for more than twenty years after the nuclear accident there. Lush, albeit radioactive-tinged, trees and grasses have filled in the area. It’s certainly not the barren, burned out area I would have expected.

Since the stories in my post-cataclysmic world take place fifty years after the Change (as my characters call it), that gives Mother Nature plenty of time to regroup and take over. Thus, as I wrote the first three books of the Envy Chronicles, I imagined a world that was lush and overgrown, studded with buildings that had been destroyed or partially destroyed during the earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis and other severe events that occurred.

The buildings that did make it through the apocalypse intact are no longer maintained in my world, for there simply aren’t enough people to do so. Most are abandoned, except for little pockets of communities, and the rodents, insects, moss and tenacious weeds and plants have begun to take over. (Think about how quickly your grass would grow if it wasn’t mowed weekly…)

Armed with these thoughts, I tried to imagine what the world would look like. More of a jungle than a desert. More of deep woodland forests than meadows. Cracked and buckling roads and rusted street signs, old overgrown cars and mailboxes. Bushes and grasses growing in any spot where rain and sunlight might leak inside buildings with their broken windows or cracked roofs. Even little vines or grasses sprouting in crevices on the sides of buildings.

The lesson to me was: Mother Nature wins out over Man-made creations.

And in my new series, which began with Beyond the Night (January 2010) and continues this month with Embrace the Night Eternal (February 9), we follow the stories of five men who awaken to find themselves in this world of overgrown devastation, somehow having traveled fifty years into the future.

They have to figure out how to live in this new environment, and in doing so, they meet the women who will steal their hearts.

If you were living in a post-apocalyptic world, what sort of old building would you choose to be your home?

It actually reminds me of a movie I saw recently about H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine. There as well, a glimpse of life in the future, a post-apocalyptic world is shown. Joss’ book comes at an appropriate time when the menace of 2012 and the destruction it prophesies is on the rise. Can this be a glimpse into the near future, instead of just a book? Much as I like the story, I hope it remains just that, a story, lol. The second book of this series, Embrace the Night Eternal, has just released. The third book, Abandon the Night, will release next month.

Joss Ware (better known as Colleen Gleason, author of the famous Gardella Vampire Chronicles) herself describes this series as “The result is an action-adventure romance series set in a devastated world that feels a bit like I Am Legend, with the essence of LOST and a paranormal component reminiscent of HEROES.” Don’t wait, pick up both the books today!

GIVEAWAY
(*New Giveaway and Prize Fuilfilment Rules. Please Read.) 

Prize : A copy of Beyond the Night will go to one lucky reader.

To Enter : Answer Joss’ question (read the full post).

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Deadline:   Midnight CST of March 10. 2010.

Eligibility:  US only.

Note – This book was received for review/feature consideration.
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