The Zoe Zone
Zoe loves books, writes horror, erotica and erotic romance, and can be found as close to the stage as possible at small clubs across the Southeastern U.S., rocking the fuck out to her favorite bands.
Under the name Holden Wells, she has published several short stories in gay erotica anthologies. One of these—Roughing It—has been revised and expanded into a novella and is now available in print and ebook format. The sequel to Roughing It will be coming out in 2014. A number of short stories featuring the same characters are also in the works, the first of which, "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," was released in ebook format in October 2013.
Zoe has also written a novel and a long story (both erotic romance) as Zoe X. Rider, both of which are currently seeking publication. In the meantime, she is working on a couple horror novels and a sequel to the erotic romance novel.
Currently reading
The earth's rotation has suddenly started to slow. Each day brings a longer day. Yet life goes on. Like Jack Womack's Random Acts of Senseless Violence and Jean Hegland's Into the Forest, "The Age of Miracles" is told from the point of view of a young girl--in this case 11/12-year-old Julia. Despite the age of the narrator, I wouldn't quite call "The Age of Miracles" young adult (and even less so "Random Acts" or "Into the Forest"--especially "Random Acts").
"The Age of Miracles" differs from typical post-apocalyptic YA in that Julia doesn't kick any ass. She doesn't save anyone, she's not a Heroine: she's just a regular kid, a girl with a painful crush on a neighborhood boy, an only child whose best friend up and decided to be best friends with someone else, a sixth-grader with an anxious mother and an imperfect father.
She's lonely and trying to find her way through a regular life under increasingly irregular circumstances--just like everyone else on the steadily slowing planet.
The Hunger Games, Pure, Uglies--those books are fun reads--but what I really love are "the world as we know it is coming to an end, yet life goes on" stories, like "The Age of Miracles," "Random Acts of Senseless Violence" and "Into the Forest."
I read "The Age of Miracles" compulsively, eager to find out what became of both the world and Julia. The writing was wonderful. The end was...what it had to be. I look forward to Karen Thompson Walker's future books.