By: Jessica Redmerski
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Fiction & Literature | Post-Apocalyptic | Suspense | Romance
683 pages
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Thais Fenwick was eleven-years-old when civilization fell, devastated by a virus that killed off the majority of the world’s population. For seven years, Thais and her family lived in a community of survivors deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. But when her town is attacked by raiders, she and her blind sister are taken away to the East-Central Territory where she is destined to live the cruel and unjust kind of life her late mother warned her about.
Atticus Hunt is a troubled soldier in Lexington City who has spent the past seven years trying to conform to the vicious nature of men in a post-apocalyptic society. He knows that in order to survive, he must abandon his morals and his conscience and become like those he is surrounded by. But when he meets Thais, morals and conscience win out over conformity, and he risks his rank and his life to help her. They escape the city and set out together on a long and perilous journey to find safety in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Struggling to survive in a world without electricity, food, shelter, and clean water, Atticus and Thais shed their fear of growing too close, and they fall hopelessly in love. But can love survive in such dark times, or is it fated to die with them?
ONE CLICK: AMAZON
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EXCERPT #3: “AND YOU ASK WHY?”
“Why are you so angry, Atticus?” My voice was soft and concerned now.
He blinked, but offered no response.
“I’ve seen men fight before,” I went on, “but I’ve never seen a man as angry at the world as you are. The way you beat that man in your room”—I shook my head with despondency—“the one just now; Atticus, you’re just so full of rage and hate. Why?”
He snorted, as if he’d found my question ridiculous.
“Why?” he mocked incredulously, holding out his hands, palms up. “I’ll tell you why, Thais: at every turn someone wants to rob or maim or kill us; we can’t sleep, night or day, without the thought in our heads as we close our fucking eyes that we might not wake up.” He gestured his arms wildly, his features constricted with indignation. “We’re covering our shit up like animals, sleeping in ditches, watching over our shoulder every second of every day for the chaos to grab us by the ankles and pull us down with it—and you ask why?”
I sat against my quilt, unable to stand to hear this truth. And as if his movements depended on mine, Atticus fell into a crouch in front of me, bouncing on the toes of his boots. I never looked away from the pull of his gaze, trapped by the intensity of it.
“I haven’t slept since you arrived in Lexington City,” he went on. “When I saw you that day, clutching your sister as she was ripped away from you; when you lay on the sidewalk, begging me to help you—it did two things to me, Thais”—he held up two fingers, and then dropped them between his legs—“it fucking killed me; the things I had to do, the part I had to play in not only your fate, but the fate of every girl in those ropes—it fucking killed me! It killed what little was left of my humanity!” His voice had risen with his heated words, his memories, but then he paused to calm himself, lowering his head but for a moment.
I remained motionless, speechless, but my heart began to ache and fill up at the same time. I listened raptly to every word, my heart breaking as he spoke them.
“It killed me,” he repeated. “But then something reached into Hell, grabbed me by the throat and pulled me back. I died that day in the street, Thais Fenwick; I died and then there I was, looking down at you with the eyes of the man I used to be, and I wanted to help you. I still fought with myself after that, but I wasn’t going to let you die or be raped or forced to marry a man you didn’t love—I didn’t know what to do, but I was going to do something, goddammit.”
I sighed. I wanted to hold him, but all I could do was sigh.
J.A. (Jessica Ann) Redmerski is an international bestselling author and award winner who juggles several different genres. She began self-publishing in 2012, and later with the success of THE EDGE OF NEVER, signed on with Grand Central Publishing/Forever Romance. Her works have so far been translated into twenty languages.
Jessica is a hybrid author who, in addition to working with a traditional publisher, also continues to self-publish. The Portuguese rights to her popular crime and suspense series, In the Company of Killers, have been picked up by one of Brazil's largest publishers - Suma de Letras; Paikese Kirjastus in Estonia; Ephesus in Turkey; Konyvmolykepzob in Hungary. The series has been optioned for television by William Levy.
EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN is Jessica’s newest love story.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JRedmerski
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/J.A.Redmerski
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jredmerski/
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What is your favorite part of the writing process?
The last sentence. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love getting into the story, living out my character’s lives, but there’s nothing like a finished manuscript. It’s a huge accomplishment and I doubt I’ll ever tire of it.
What would you like for readers to take away from your
novels?
I just want readers to be able to connect on some level with the characters I create, and take with them an experience rather than just a story.
Tell us your favorite quote.
“Love is a trick that Nature plays on us to get us to reproduce.” – Callisto – Xena Warrior Princess. I’m not against love, I’ve always just been awed by that quote. Not to mention, Callisto was awesome!
Fans of your In the Company of Killers series are wanting to know why it’s taking so long to release book #7. Can you give us some information on it?
I do get this question everyday it seems, but it’s so hard to reply to everybody. I’ll do my best to explain what’s going on with book 7 right here. So here goes! I’m 100% dedicated to that series, and I know it’s frustrating that after six books, it’s taking a longer-than-average time to publish the seventh. But I need everyone to understand that not only have I been going through a lot of personal things the past year-and-a-half that prevented me from writing much of anything, but also, I just needed to take a step back and finish EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN before I tried to tackle any other book. EUtS has been a work-in-progress going on, I think, almost three years now. No matter what else I tried to write, EUtS kept looming in the back of my mind, and it was affecting my current works-in-progress (book 7 included). I knew that if I didn’t just put everything else aside and finish EUtS that my other books would, quite honestly, be shit. Not all writers are the same, of course, but I’m one of the ones who absolutely must work on the book that’s taking up the most space in my heart and mind, instead of the one everybody is waiting on. But I promise, I’ll be back to work on SPIDERS IN THE GROVE soon! Just please be patient with me. 😊
You stated that you were going to write Lily’s book (from THE EDGE OF NEVER) – is that still a certainty?
I do still intend to write Lily’s book, but at this time I can’t estimate when that might be.
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