by Jay Wilburn
Samie Sands has an incredible zombie series with the AM 13 Outbreak series. We are up to book four as of the writing of this post and the series is only getting stronger and stronger. Book 1 opens with a unique character and unique dilemma for the outbreak both for the general population and the main character of the story. The series reads through smooth and interesting, but every book works as a contained, stand-alone novel too. I don’t believe you will be disappointed by giving her work a chance.
She started writing the very first book, Lockdown, in 2013. She says the first draft was terrible, but it gave her the start she needed and speaking as a reader, the published draft is great. Interestingly, she tells me the first book she wrote for herself. She didn’t necessarily plan for it to be published, so she didn’t really feel much pressure. When it came to writing the other books, she knew they’d be going out there for the world to read, so there was a slightly different thought process behind them. Readers like me apparently put the pressure on as we responded to the series. With Not Dead Yet, the fourth book in the series, she featured some real people as characters, so she wanted to create some great scenarios for their true personalities too. After reading book four, I can say the characters really seem to come off the page. Maybe this inclusion of real people in the story is part of the reason why.
Samie Sands loves anything zombie, she always has, so zombies was her first, obvious choice for her first book. The genre and trope are things which really fascinate her, and also presents situations where she can really push characters to the brink of insanity, really revealing their true strengths or weaknesses. Then, when she eventually got her first publishing contract, they wanted a trilogy from her, and the series, AM 13 The Outbreak series, has developed from there. She says, because she didn’t necessarily plan a series to start with, that is why every book can be read as a standalone or within the series with equal enjoyment.
In addition to being a fan of the series, I’m a fan of Samie Sands as a writer. She has a range of horror short stories throughout several different anthologies and publications. Beyond horror, she has novels in contemporary fiction and romance genres. These books also push the confines of these literary styles and their rules. She writes characters you don’t usually find on the page with these genres. She laughed when I asked her about the range of her writing. She said, there’s definitely a bit of a mix in her books. All of her stories start with a character, and the plot comes from them. With Lockdown, the first book in her zombie series, she started to wonder what it would be like for a girl-next-door type with absolutely no relevant skills to tackle the zombie apocalypse. I’ve seen this character concept used in zombie stories before. I can count on my fingers the number of authors who have done “the girl next door plunged into the apocalypse” really well and fortunately Samie Sands is one of those authors. She brings something different to the sensibility of her characters. After she had the idea, the scenario began to build in her mind of whether the horrors would make her character thrive or not so much A lot of what actually happens to her in the story came about after she’d started writing. The same goes for the other genres for Sands as a writer. Lara, in Living on Borrowed Time, came to life when Sands went through some health problems of her own. The character of Lara had to overcome her issues by the time the plot begins, but the mental side effects of what she’s been through still linger and this leads her to make some less-than-sensible decisions. Lara ends up in a self-destructive cycle she can’t seem to get out of. Sands supposes, the characters start with a little bit of herself in them, but they always spiral off into their own people.
I hope I have made the case for Samie Sands. Pick up book 4 of the AM 13 Outbreak series, NOT DEAD YET or begin with book 1, Lockdown now.
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