Lockdown by Samie Sands

The zombie genre is currently a highly saturated market, full of weird and wonderful tales all with a unique take on this horrifying world. It’s challenging to write something that stands out and is different, but that’s what I wanted to achieve. Luckily, since Lockdown has been released, it has been described by reviewers as ‘zombie chick-lit’ which ‘breathes new life into a tired genre’.

I wanted to write a story that didn’t sit solely within the horror field, my aim was for the plot to incorporate fun in amongst the awful situation which is why Lockdown traverses into sci fi, fantasy and also romance. The main character in the book is not your typical zombie apocalypse survivor. She isn’t someone with a military or survivalist background or even medical training, she’s not in any way a ‘bad ass’, she’s just a girl-next-door type with no special skills to help her pull through this nightmare.

To begin with Leah, who’s a news researcher, stumbles across a zombie apocalypse prank online. Through her job and the nature of the Internet this very quickly goes viral and starts to be taken far too seriously. As Leah tries to save her flagging reputation, the government are planning a Lockdown—which involves quarantining everyone inside their own homes. As much as the entire thing seems ludicrous, it soon becomes clear that there might be more to this virus than anyone first suspected. It’s at this point in the plot that everything begins to descend into a nightmare.

Lockdown is set to become a trilogy with the second book on it's way. To keep up to date with this (and for all the social media links) check out http://thelockdown.co.uk