Guest Author - Joss Ware

KATI: Joss Ware's Envy Chronicles feature a host of hot men, an eerie post-apocalyptic world, and an intriguing mystery. We're thrilled to have her visit us here at DIK today. Please help us raise a fruity drink to Joss Ware!

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So, I know you ladies here are big-time romance novel experts, and maybe you might be wondering how anyone could think that a post-apocalyptic romance is a good idea. I mean…people dying, buildings collapsing, earthquakes, tsunamis—The Day After Tomorrow meets I Am Legend—where’s the Happy Ever After in that?

Even His Hotness Will Smith didn’t get it on during his zombie movie. And if he couldn’t find a happy ending, looking like he does…. (Can we just pause for a moment to recall That Scene where he does pull-ups in the doorway?)

(Okay. I’m back. You? All right…I’ll give you a bit longer. Ready?)

That sort of skepticism was my first reaction when someone suggested that I think about writing a post-apocalyptic romance. And that’s why when I decided to actually write one (which turned out to be the Envy Chronicles, also known as the Awakening Heroes series), I decided that my guys and gals were going to have to exist far after the catastrophic events that decimated the earth on June 10, 2010 so I didn’t have to deal with messy stuff like that—at least in real time.

In my world, the world of Envy, it’s fifty years after the catastrophe. Five men wake up in a cave in Sedona, Arizona, to find out that somehow they were either transported to the future or suspended in time, or something. And that the world has horrifically changed.

The series is about how each man adapts to this new environment, how he finds the woman who can help him feel as if he’s come “home”…and how he deals with the paranormal ability that he has (or hasn’t) acquired during the fifty-year sleep.

The fourth book in the series, Night Betrayed, is Theo’s book, and it will be released on January 25 (so you have time to catch up!). Theo actually wasn’t one of the five men trapped in the cave in Sedona—his story is different because he actually lived through the catastrophic events. Yes, he’s eighty years old…but he hasn’t aged past thirty and he is hawt: a dragon-tattooed, totally ripped, computer geek.

But if you don’t particularly care for muscular, inked nerds (why wouldn’t you?), there are three other heroes to choose from in previous books:

Elliott, the hero of Beyond the Night, is a sensitive, charming Emergency Room surgeon who has to deal with the fact that he no longer has the ability to treat injury and illness in this stark, new world. He meets up with a lounge singer from Envy who goes on secret missions from settlement to settlement.

Simon, from Embrace the Night Eternal, is the strong, silent, brooding type who leaves behind a bloody, dangerous past in East LA when he wakes up to find himself in this post-apocalyptic world. One thing he brings with him is his honor…but when he falls for another man’s woman, and then has to go on a mission with her under pretense of being her husband, that honor is stretched to the limits.

And in Abandon the Night, Quent is a rich playboy who had everything he ever wanted—but not everything he needed—in our world, and who now has to accept the fact that he doesn’t have any skills or worth in this much simpler one. Money and power are worth nothing anymore. When he falls for a sharp-tongued zombie hunter named Zoë, things really heat up.

And the zombies? Well, yes, there are zombies in the books, but they’re more like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings or the Stormtroopers in Star Wars than the Walking Dead creatures…so, Kati, they aren’t too scary. ;-) [KATI: *shudder* Zombies skeer me!]

I’d love to answer any questions about the World of Envy or the heroes…so ask away!

And thanks to the DIK Ladies for having me back here!