Author Guest Posts: Family & Relationships in a Dying World

Today I have author Samantha Durante with us talking on a topic I thought would touch wonderfully in her Young Adult Science Fiction/Dystopian series.

If you are new to the series, it starts with the first book Stitch.  Which you can check out my review for.  You can also find it on sale: Amazon ~ Kindle ~ for 99c

Please give a warm welcome for Samantha returning to the blog...

Family & Relationships in a Dying World 

by Samantha Durante, author of the Stitch Trilogy

Imagine the world ended tomorrow.

You have no more career, no school, no obligations. Money is meaningless. All the material possessions you’ve accumulated are useless, except what you can carry on your back. There’s no electricity to power your iPad, no gas to run your car, no fuel to heat your home – besides whatever you can find to burn, that is.

So what *do* you have left? When all the entrapments of daily life are tossed overboard and you’re fighting just to hold a claim over the basic necessities of survival, what exactly is left to live *for?*

Ask any of the characters from the Stitch Trilogy, and they’ll tell you the same thing: their loved ones.

It’s a truth that’s easy to overlook in our everyday lives, when we’re constantly distracted by our responsibilities and our duties, by earning a living and paying the bills and delegating our time between an endless array of commitments and chores and diversions and tasks. But strip all that away, and you remember what’s *supposed* to be the point of all that to begin with – to create a nice life for us and the people we care about.

Alessa and Isaac and Janie are all acutely aware of this fact, because the world as they knew it is in ruins, and they are faced every day with a choice: soldier on, or give up? And they wake up and make the same choice – with conviction – every single day because of one solitary factor: they still have each other. And that means life is still worth the fight.

The characters in the Stitch Trilogy say this about each other all the time – “s/he’s the only thing I have left.” And they *mean* it. There’s no such thing anymore as upward mobility, or crushing debt, or long-term aspirations. All there is, is *now.* There’s immediate survival. And if you’re lucky, there’s the opportunity to build another memory with the people you love.

We all know this in our hearts, and this is what makes post-apocalyptic stories so compelling. In a world where there’s always something to pull us away from our loved ones, these stories make us remember why we were put here to begin with: to connect, to cherish, to love. Because without our family and friends, there is simply nothing to live for, no matter how many gadgets or awards or accouterments we surround ourselves with.

In a dying world like the one in Stitch and Shudder, this becomes painfully apparent. Those bonds of love – whether old or new – give strength to survivors. And those unlucky ones without any love to live for… well, it’s only a matter of time before they perish.


Author Bio:
Samantha Durante lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, Sudeep, and her cat, Gio. Formerly an engineer at Microsoft, Samantha left the world of software in 2010 to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams and a lifelong love of writing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, Samantha is currently working full time for her company Medley Media Associates as a freelance business writer and communications consultant. The Stitch Trilogy is her debut series. Learn more about Samantha at www.samanthadurante.com.

Stitch
Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa’s body screams at her to run… but yet she’s powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees – and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell – Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn’t figured out yet is that she’s not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university’s idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface…

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

Shudder
It’s only been three days, and already everything is different.

Paragon is behind her, but somehow Alessa’s life may actually have gotten worse. In a wrenching twist of fate, she traded the safety and companionship of her sister for that of her true love, losing a vital partner she’d counted on for the ordeal ahead. Her comfortable university life is but a distant memory, as she faces the prospect of surviving a bleak winter on the meager remains of a ravaged world. And if she’d thought she’d tasted fear upon seeing a ghost, she was wrong; now she’s discovering new depths of terror while being hunted by a deadly virus and a terrifying pack of superhuman creatures thirsting for blood.

And then there are the visions.

The memory-altering “stitch” unlocked something in Alessa’s mind, and now she can’t shake the constant flood of alien feelings ransacking her emotions. Haunting memories of an old flame are driving a deep and painful rift into her once-secure relationship. And a series of staggering revelations about the treacherous Engineers – and the bone-chilling deceit shrouding her world’s sorry history – will soon leave Alessa reeling…

The second installment in the electrifying Stitch Trilogy, Shudder follows Samantha Durante’s shocking and innovative debut with a heart-pounding, paranormal-dusted dystopian adventure sure to keep the pages turning.