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Melody: Holy shit.
Daphne smiled and prepared her “ha-ha” response. Hey, you said you wanted a photo. Didn’t say it had to be me.
Melody: Please tell me that’s you.
Melody: I just showed it to the publicity director, and I think she’s hyperventilating.
Melody: Please, please, please, tell me that’s you.
Daphne: You’d prefer someone a little more author-ly, right? Older?
Melody: Are you kidding???!!!
Melody: I need the professional shots ASAP. We’ll recommend a photographer if you need it. I’ll let you go. I can see you’re having lunch. Thank you!!!
Daphne lowered the phone and looked at Chris, who was still talking, as if unaware she’d been on her phone.
Now what?
If Nia recommended him, he couldn’t be as bad as he seemed, right?
She cut into his monologue. “When can you start?”
CHAPTER TWO
APRIL 15, TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS TO PUBLICATION
It’s real,” Daphne whispered, holding the padded envelope in her trembling hands. “Really, really real.”
Tika—bless her canine soul—did not judge Daphne’s temporary lack of vocabulary. The husky only danced at her feet, sensing her excitement. Then Tika raced to bring her favorite ball, and Daphne threw it toward the lake. As Tika tore off, Daphne pulled the book from the envelope.
Her book. In actual book form.
Yes, words were not her friend today, but could anyone blame her? She was holding a dream made real.
In less than a month, people were going to read her story. People who were in no way related to Daphne.
When Tika returned, Daphne threw the ball again. Then she lifted the book into the sunlight and grinned a silly smile that stretched her face until it hurt.
Her book. Okay, it read “Zane Remington” on the cover, but that didn’t matter. She’d written every word in this book. It was hers.
At the Edge of the World.
The title still threw her. She’d called the book Winter’s Sleep, but the publisher said they wanted to position her book as more of a literary thriller, which made her laugh. It was about a zombie apocalypse. Not exactly highbrow.
Taking a deep breath, Daphne flipped the book over to read the jacket copy. Instead, she found herself staring at Chris Ainsworth.
His face took up the entire back cover.
At that, she felt her first twinge of pricked ego. His picture on her book. That was the point, of course, but the entire cover? His photo was more important than anything about the actual book?
She opened it and found the synopsis printed inside the book jacket. She skimmed the words and tried not to squirm. Her editor had reworked her version into something that, well, vaguely resembled the actual story.
The main character, seventeen-year-old Theodora, had grown up in Vancouver, now Seattle. She’d been on her first camping trip in the Yukon—now Alaska—when the zombie outbreak erupted. The book began three years later. The zombies had made it to Alaska, and everyone Theo knew was dead or turned. The city girl had become a survivalist.
In Daphne’s fictional world, zombies hibernated in winter—hence her original title. That meant Theo had six zombie-free months to hunt and build and prepare. Yet summer was the time when game was plentiful… and that was when the zombies woke.
The synopsis portrayed Theo as a kick-ass heroine, while in reality, Daphne aimed for her character to be clever and resourceful rather than a superhero. It also gave away a twist that wasn’t revealed until halfway through the book. And, to her surprise, rather than glossing over the romance angle, the jacket copy made it seem more important than it was.
