Mom With A Kindle Interviews Zombie Author Ace Antonio Hall

Confessions of Sylva Slasher

A Zombie Novel

Ace Antonio Hall

Publisher:  Montag Press, April 2013

Genre: YA Horror

Book Description:

THE LOVE OF HER LIFE BECOMES THE DEATH OF THEIR LOVE

Sylva Fleischer is a teenager who works as a necromancer for a living. Wanting to get away from raising the dead for police investigations and demanding grieving families for a while, she goes on a cruise for spring break. Her vacation from the dead is short-lived when passengers on the ship turn into flesh-eating zombies. These are not the same simple-minded harmless zombies she raises and can control, so Sylva and her friends are trapped on the Pacific Ocean. Their only escape comes from a guy Sylva thought was dead: Brandon. It just so happens to also be the anniversary of his death, and she's still hurting from his loss!

Why didn't he call to say he's alive? All those tears … for nothing.

Sylva doesn't normally hold grudges, but when someone plays with her heart they have to pay. However, with the fate of the human race on the line, Brandon convinces Sylva to join him in a secret mission, yet she can't shake the feeling that he's hiding something.

It didn't take long for her suspicions to hold true when it's revealed that Brandon has been romantically involved with the very enemy he now wants her to destroy. To top that brutal betrayal, the villainous female would rather kill Brandon than let Sylva have a chance to patch things up between them. Sylva is not the kind of girl to walk away from love without a fight, but with a strange virus threatening extinction of human life, she shoves her own feelings in her back pocket to face her greatest nightmare, and that nightmare starts with something that is eerily growing right inside of her own mind and body.

When The Heart Bleeds, Sometimes Your Friends Are All You've Got

Available at Amazon

Praise for Ace Antonio Hall and Confessions of Sylva Slasher

“A treat for Buffy fans—but 100% Ace Antonio Hall's own twisted vision. Breathes new life into the living dead; run, don't shamble to get a copy.”

—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the WWW trilogy

“In a vast sea of zombie tales, Hall's tale is more than a cut above. He brings the entire genre to heel and treats us to one Hell of a ride.”

—Art Holcomb, writer of Professor Xavier & the X-Men vs. The Avengers, Marvel Comics

“When you get some free time, write. When you get some lazy time, plan. When you get down time, world build. When your time comes, shine.”

–Ace Antonio Hall

If you could have any superpower what would you choose?

I would love to have a super power to heal. I would go from room-to-room to every sick child and clear out the hospitals all over the world—Africa, India, Japan, here, everywhere. I would share my power with each child so that they could go out and heal others. Sometimes healing comes after helping others go through the same pain you went through. I would go to every woman who has ever been hurt, physically or mentally through abuse and heal them, as well.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

I'll never forget the day Adam West signed a black-and-white photo of him posing as Batman at a May Cohens store in Jacksonville, Florida. I got a big kick out of that signing. Mr. West was so kind and gracious. One of my most rewarding experiences since becoming traditionally published would be that time I did a book tour with Jaidis Shaw and she did a promotion with another author where the winner received a shirt from my Zombie Pop Shop. Jaidis sent me a picture and the little girl looked so happy. That was incredible! Being able to be a part of someone else's tour made me feel like I mattered, that my artistry mattered, and was beginning to touch lives. If my stories are that good they can allow me to do that, it would be tremendous each day I open my eyes to face the morning sun.

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

It's good.

Favorite food?

I grew up with my Nana who cooked soul food and baked apple pies on Sundays, hamburgers and fries on Tuesday, fish on Fridays, pasta on Saturdays and mouth-watering fruit cakes during the holidays. When I moved back to New York to get my degree, I fell in love with pepper steak and orange chicken, and dated an Indian girl from Trinidad, so in no particular order, I love soul food, Chinese food, Indian food and Italian.

What book are you reading now?

I am reading Bag of Bones by Stephen King. I think one of the reasons, besides the fact that I love creepy spine-tingling reads, that I love horror is because it deals with how people react to pain and adversity. We can not escape tragic roads, I know that. It's like grasping at the sun and trying to catch air. However, we must take one step at-a-time and keep going. This has been a philosophy of mine ever since my first wife died, five days after we got married when I was nineteen. One of the reasons I love Disney stories so much is because ninety-nine percent of the time, the protagonists' parents have died and they have to persevere through the world learning how to deal with the horrors that try to taint their outlook on life. I love reading stories that epitomizes this type of experience and write my own stories to come from the heart and speak on issues that we all go through and have to overcome.

What’s your favorite season/weather?

I once wrote in a story, “Don't let the way people are, disrupt your day. Understand them for who they are, the good and the bad, but keep a bond with serenity.” To me, people are like seasons. They can be hot, muggy, cold, chilly, dry, frigid, or whatever, but even during a thunderstorm, I can find something to appreciate. I love the seasons, all of them, and try to include the various types of weather in all of my stories. Living in New York taught me to appreciate the different seasons, the variety of different brown, red and yellow colors in the fall, the snow white of winter, the wet springs and the humid summers. I love all seasons, but if I were to choose one to live in all year round, it would be the summer.

What was your favorite children's book?

Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key was my first novel, and my favorite. Many elements of what I read in that story pop up in my own stories time-and-time again. If I were to go back further in my childhood, it probably would've been the Disney's version of Robin Hood. I loved it! That question just brought back so many fond memories of growing up in my grandmother's home. My Nana was a teacher for 44 years and gave me many, many books to read.

Beach or Pool?

Beach. Why? One of my first of many, many jobs in my life (over 55), I was a life-guard. I remember like it was yesterday, the time we had to close the pool because I found at floating at the bottom of the pool, nose-to-object something a mother's baby left as a reminder that I should've been looking more at everyone instead of just the cute girls. I still have nightmares about that day; being face-to-face with Mr. Log. Yeah, I prefer the beach, although, I rarely get in the water. I've been tainted. Lol.

What is one book everyone should read?

Is that a trick question? If you ask me, an author, what book everyone should read … well, in my honest opinion, I think everyone should read Confessions of Sylva Slasher. Satisfaction guaranteed!

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?

I had a little setback with my novel Skateboard Xombies. I was expecting it to come out December 23rd, a few days ago, but contractual problems out of my hands, have pushed the date back to 2015. A date hasn't been set yet, but it will be an epic project I am working on that tells a story about how a sorceress loses the most precious gift she's ever had, her daughter, and does every thing in her power to make the world pay for it until she is rejoined with her daughter's lost soul. She convinces Sylva Slasher to help her, and while everyone thinks Sylva is making a mistake by helping such an evil person, Sylva can't help but empathize when she learns what happened to the sorceress' good-natured and loving daughter. Skateboard Xombies starts the series, with Skateboard Xamurai, being the second, and I have plans of the final novel, Skateboard Xen rounding up the story.

Excerpt 

Chapter 1

PART ONE SILVER KISSES

For since death came through a man,

the resurrection of the dead

comes also through a man.— I Corinthians 15:21

Chapter 1

YEAH, THE WHOLE STINKING PLANET WANTED ME DEAD, and they got their wish. I tried to move but couldn’t. Not with a broken back. Breathing slow, uneven, I stared into the undead woman’s eyes that dripped an ominous glare down onto my helpless body.

Maybe if I hadn’t gotten dreamy eyes for this really cute guy (I mean jerk), the weight of the human race wouldn’t be sitting on my shoulders. I would’ve easily given my life so my best friend, Emily, wouldn’t die. Too late.

The full moon draped around the undead woman’s shadow that climbed up my broken body like ghosts of death. The island soil, thirsty for moisture, welcomed my blood. Terror wrestled me into a stone cold chokehold—I forgot how to scream. The scent of rotten corpses gripped my nostrils. A horde of the walking dead moaned and hovered over me like starved coyotes as the undead woman crept forward on all fours to kill me, again.

CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL? HERE'S A PREVIEW TO

SKATEBOARD XOMBIES, SEARCH FOR THE CRYSTAL COFFIN:

On a normal school day in Lunyon Canyon, California, teenage necromancer, Sylva Fleischer, bickers with her teacher in class over an unfairly graded paper. But when the principal announces that all teachers should lock their door and not let any students leave class, the entire school is trapped in a world of terrifying zombies that not only bite with their teeth, they bite with their minds.

Since all life on Earth faces extinction at the hands of the perilous undead, a guardian of a secret society of vampire monks saves Sylva, her friend, Half-Pipe and her family, and lead them to an alternate world. And that's when the real terror begins ... on a planet full of every imaginable type of undead creature that ever lived ... Including those telekinetic zombies!

About the Author:

Ace Antonio Hall is an actor, former music producer, and ‘retired’ educator with accolades as a Director of Education for the Sylvan Learning Center and nearly fifteen years experience as an award-winning NYC English teacher. He has a BFA degree with a concentration in screenwriting and has published poetry, short stories and fiction in magazines, anthologies, newspapers and novels.

Inspired by his father, Chris Acemandese Hall, who penned the lyrics to the Miles Davis jazz classic, “So What”, sung by Eddie Jefferson, and his sister, Carol Lynn Brown, who guest starred in the 1970’s film, “Velvet Smooth”, Ace spawned his creativity into developing the beloved but flawed teen character, Sylva Slasher.

Ace was the Vice President of the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (2009-2011), and continues to head the Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror (ScHoFan) Critique Group as Co-Director of critique groups within the society. He is also a member of LASFS and the International Thriller Writers.

On April 14, 2013, Montag Press published his YA zombie novel Confessions of Sylva Slasher. His next release, Skateboard Xombies, is coming out later this year, and he has already begun working on Skateboard Xamurai for the third installment in his Sylva Slasher series.

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Looking for some zombie gear? Check out Ace’s Zombie Pop Shop!

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