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About the Novel
The time is now, and a mysterious virus has infected much of the world's population, turning them into flesh-craving zombies. As people die from what the media call "drug-fuelled Bath Salts attacks" one young mother sees what is truly happening beneath the lies, and with her good friends An and Olivia, takes matters into her own hands to keep her family safe.
Day by day, Bath Salts tells of their escape to the arctic tundra, and their desperate attempt to survive the elements, zombie attacks, and armed bandits with their humanity intact.
Day by day, Bath Salts tells of their escape to the arctic tundra, and their desperate attempt to survive the elements, zombie attacks, and armed bandits with their humanity intact.
Preview Excerpt
October 11
An is completely on board! Turns out she’s been following the news just as obsessively as I have. Thank G-d! I don’t know what I would have done if she’d laughed at me. Now all we have to do is start work on our plan. I feel that we are on the verge of
an outbreak. I am talking about a real Romero type walking dead disaster. I will not allow my family to be hurt by this. So, after speaking with An, we have a plan for our survival. We are going to pool our resources and get out before it all gets rough.
We will begin stockpiling resources now. An tells me she actually owns a rifle with a scope. I’m glad she couldn’t see my face over the phone when I heard that. I never pegged her for a hunter, but apparently she used to hunt with her father when she lived in Calgary, and kept her gun when she came to Toronto. This is good. I don’t know if there’s time for me to get such a weapon. The gun laws are very strict here. However, I can easily get a couple of machetes as secondary weapons. Tomorrow I will head to the camping store and pick up some more supplies. So far I have also bought the children snowsuits in several sizes, as well as warm outfits. I hope we don’t stay up there long enough to actually need them all.
I will write down our plan thus far, at least so I can keep it all straight in my head: We will purchase a plot of land as far north as we believe we can go. Once we have it, we found a company that builds small houses on trailers. We will buy two of them and have them
delivered to our plot of land, and have them outfitted with solar panels. Around this land we will have a ten foot tall chain link fence with a secure, locked gate erected. This way, we are in the wilderness, with no people around. No people means no dead walking around us. As it is very cold, it will deter people from joining us, and in the winter, the dead will (hopefully) freeze. I suggested we have a shed or two on this land that we can plug into our trailers, and we can use these with windows on the roofs and space heaters as makeshift greenhouses to grow food. She’s down with this plan. Now I need to get Brian on board.
An is completely on board! Turns out she’s been following the news just as obsessively as I have. Thank G-d! I don’t know what I would have done if she’d laughed at me. Now all we have to do is start work on our plan. I feel that we are on the verge of
an outbreak. I am talking about a real Romero type walking dead disaster. I will not allow my family to be hurt by this. So, after speaking with An, we have a plan for our survival. We are going to pool our resources and get out before it all gets rough.
We will begin stockpiling resources now. An tells me she actually owns a rifle with a scope. I’m glad she couldn’t see my face over the phone when I heard that. I never pegged her for a hunter, but apparently she used to hunt with her father when she lived in Calgary, and kept her gun when she came to Toronto. This is good. I don’t know if there’s time for me to get such a weapon. The gun laws are very strict here. However, I can easily get a couple of machetes as secondary weapons. Tomorrow I will head to the camping store and pick up some more supplies. So far I have also bought the children snowsuits in several sizes, as well as warm outfits. I hope we don’t stay up there long enough to actually need them all.
I will write down our plan thus far, at least so I can keep it all straight in my head: We will purchase a plot of land as far north as we believe we can go. Once we have it, we found a company that builds small houses on trailers. We will buy two of them and have them
delivered to our plot of land, and have them outfitted with solar panels. Around this land we will have a ten foot tall chain link fence with a secure, locked gate erected. This way, we are in the wilderness, with no people around. No people means no dead walking around us. As it is very cold, it will deter people from joining us, and in the winter, the dead will (hopefully) freeze. I suggested we have a shed or two on this land that we can plug into our trailers, and we can use these with windows on the roofs and space heaters as makeshift greenhouses to grow food. She’s down with this plan. Now I need to get Brian on board.
Recognition
Reviews
4 Stars from Literary Titan
"What I enjoyed most was the doubleness of the narration. Alexis writes with earnest resolve and maternal terror, while Xuân’s entries slash across the page with profanity, gallows humor, and a kind of anti-sentimental clarity. That contrast keeps the novel from going slack. Alexis can verge on idealized competence, but the book is sharper when it lets exhaustion, pettiness, boredom, and small comforts sit beside the horror. I believed this world most when the characters were arguing over what to pack, improvising meals, hauling children through danger, or trying to preserve scraps of normal life with movies, karaoke, and make-do celebrations. The apocalypse here is not sleek; it’s cramped, messy, and often absurd, which makes it feel oddly convincing...
This is a good fit for readers who like their end-of-the-world stories scrappy, human, and a little feral. The end of the world is still, maddeningly, a matter of keeping the house together."
"What I enjoyed most was the doubleness of the narration. Alexis writes with earnest resolve and maternal terror, while Xuân’s entries slash across the page with profanity, gallows humor, and a kind of anti-sentimental clarity. That contrast keeps the novel from going slack. Alexis can verge on idealized competence, but the book is sharper when it lets exhaustion, pettiness, boredom, and small comforts sit beside the horror. I believed this world most when the characters were arguing over what to pack, improvising meals, hauling children through danger, or trying to preserve scraps of normal life with movies, karaoke, and make-do celebrations. The apocalypse here is not sleek; it’s cramped, messy, and often absurd, which makes it feel oddly convincing...
This is a good fit for readers who like their end-of-the-world stories scrappy, human, and a little feral. The end of the world is still, maddeningly, a matter of keeping the house together."