February 4, 2021
Lost World Post Four
Week 5, Day 4 – Lost World
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Release Date: April 28, 2015
Cover Design: Jimmy Gibbs
Formats: ebook, audiobook, and paperback – grab the ebook for just $0.99 for a limited time!
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Universal
Audible
Goodreads
With their shelter destroyed and their sense of security shattered, Vivian, Axl and the group set off in search of a safe place. But the group’s morale is at an all-time low, and they now know it’s not just the dead they have to fear. Weeks of wandering brings sickness, death and loss to the survivors, and Vivian soon finds herself losing hope of ever discovering a safe place to live.
What’s your favorite thing about Lost World?
I loved everything about the hot spring. Angus gets a little playful with the kids around the campfire and Al embarrasses Lila by bragging about their sex life, everyone gets a chance to get clean and spend some much needed alone time after weeks of traveling in the back of a truck. We get to see how close the group has gotten, but also how much certain people have changed. Moira is a shell after Nathan’s death, and Parv has toughened up. Hadley is really, really struggling. Plus, I just love the setting. I can imagine how amazing it would be to find yourself at a hot spring in the middle of all this.
I love Hadley’s transformation to Ginny as well. Not just the baggage, but her struggle with how to deal with what happened to her and how she feels about Jon. She started something with him so she could distract herself, and she isn’t sure what to make of her feelings. It was fun to write this transformation for her.
My absolute, 100% favorite part of this book might be my favorite part of the whole series. Angus is bitten. I loved writing this (so much that I added it to Angus and wrote it from his POV) because we really, really got see Angus being totally and completely vulnerable for the first time. We got to see how much Axl cared about him, which was a big deal after Mad World when they were butting heads so much, and Vivian was able to realize that she’d come to care about Angus, too. His speech to Axl gutted me – and I wrote it!
“You listen here, and you listen good,” Angus says, his voice low and firm. “This whole life’s been shit. Grew up without a dad and with a mom that thought I was a good for nothin’ just like the bastard that ran out on her. Didn’t have much food and none of the stuff the other kids had. It made me mean and mad. Made me hate the world. The only thing in this whole goddamn world I ever cared ‘bout was you. When you was born, I promised myself I’d take care of you. Didn’t matter what that bitch did, I was gonna make sure you was okay. I sat up nights with you when you was a baby. Took care of you when you was sick. Changed your fuckin’ diapers! You ain’t nothin’ to me, and you ain’t nothin’ to them people back at the house. You’re the only thing that’s gonna get them through all this, ‘cause you got the best of me in you, but more than that, too. You know how to care ‘bout people, and that’s what they need.”
It still makes me cry, and it was definitely a HUGE inspiration when I started writing Angus, because I felt like it really got to the core of who he was as a person and why he acted the way he did. I’d always meant to redeem Angus in the eyes of the reader, but I’d never intended to make him into the huge character that he was. I was honestly planning to redeem him just before he died so everyone wished they could know more about him, but when I got to this part, I decided I just couldn’t let him go and made him immune instead. And I’m SO glad I did because it change the entire series!
