about the book
I am just a clueless teen watching TV when the world ends. Mom is at work and dad is at the store, and they never make it home. The Florae, nasty aliens attracted to light and sound, invade Earth. These voracious creatures, nearly blind but outrageously fast, ruthlessly and efficiently devour every living thing in their path. In short order, society crumbles, governments perish, nearly all humanity vanishes, and the planet turns into a ravaged wasteland. I grow up real quick; have to if I want to live.
My name is Amy Harris and this is how I survive.
My eco-conscious dad had set up a rainwater system, solar panels, and a roof-top garden, and my security-minded mom had rimmed the house with an electrified fence. I learn to live silently, avoiding all noise. I also learn how to scavenge, always vigilant for THEM. While searching a grocery, I stumble upon a toddler. I think about leaving her. If she cries, the aliens will find us. In the end, I take her home.
Until that day, I held out hope that things would return to normal. Now I know there is no hope. “Nothing this broken can ever be fixed,” I tell the child that I named “Baby” and think of as my sister. To avoid all noise, we have our own sign language. Baby, no ordinary child, senses the gravity of our situation. Years pass, occasionally peaceful, more often terrifying, and during all this time neither of us ever speaks a word.
When we come across another survivor, Amber, and let her into our life, she betrays us. Forced out of our sanctuary, Baby and I are on the run when an alien ship scoops us up. This is all about the survival of the fittest.
And my gut says the Florae are not the only creatures I need to fear!
about the author
Demitria Lunetta started “writing” in kindergarten. She made up elaborate stories about the characters she watched on television and in movies. One of her best tales involved the characters of the Wizard of Oz meeting the Ewoks of Star Wars. She has always been a big reader and today is a self-professed BOOK NERD!
A native Chicagoan, Demitria earned a bachelor’s degree in human ecology and “has spent countless hours studying the many ways in which people are capable of bringing about their own destruction.” If you are worried about post-apocalyptic survival, she recommends always carrying a good book and a chocolate bar with you!
In the After is her debut novel and already is an award winner. She followed it with In the End, the thrilling conclusion to Amy and Baby’s story. Demitria admits she doesn’t have a singular writing process but whatever she is doing, it is working well. She wrote In the After in just four months. It helps she has a “strangely high capacity for remembering small details.” While she is working on one book, she is often thinking about another, so in reality, she says, writing a book could take “anywhere from a few months to a lifetime!”
Sources :
Author website
Author interview: Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire
Also by Demetria Lunetta:
In the End (In the After, Book 2) Harperteen. 2014.
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Aliens know how human beings think, how to kill us, and what things we live and die for, and now solitude is the only way for Cassie to survive. She can trust no one. However, when she meets Evan, she may have to take a chance on companionship once again. She has little choice.
In the End (In the After, Book 2) by Demitria Lunetta
It has been a few months since Amy escaped New Hope and she is surviving fine on her own…until she hears four words she hoped she would never hear in her earpiece: “Dr. Reynolds has Baby.” With her foundling sister in imminent danger from the malevolent doctor who had brought about the end of the Before, Amy races back to Fort Black. She has to find Ken. He holds the key to Baby’s survival. One small slip up could cost all of them their lives, as well the survival of all the people in the After!
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