Welcome to my stop on the Wisteria Book Tour. You will find a Character Interview, blurb and my review here. Be sure to check out the other blogs on the tour to read more about this book. Brought to you by I am A Reader, Not a Writer.
Wisteria by Bisi Leyton:
Sixteen year old Wisteria Kuti has two options—track the infected around the Isle of Smythe or leave the only known safe haven and face a world infested with flesh eating biters. But even with well-armed trackers, things go wrong and Wisteria ends up alone facing certain death, until she is rescued by the mysterious Bach. Uninfected, Bach is able to survive among the hordes of living dead.
Eighteen year old Bach, from a race known as The Family, has no interest in human affairs. He was sent here to complete his Great Walk and return home as a man—as a Sen Son. The Family regard humans as Dirt People, but Bach is drawn to this Terran girl, whom he has never seen before, but somehow knows.
Hunted by flesh eaters, cannibals, and the mysterious blood thirsty group called Red Phoenix, Wisteria and Bach make their way back to the Isle of Smythe, a community built on secrets and lies.
Praise for Wisteria:
“I love the buildup of this story, getting to know the characters and watching their connection grow. I had no idea which way the story was headed and I was kept in suspense right up to the very end! It has plenty of action and a fascinating plot and I can’t wait to see what Bisi Leyton has for us next!!”
“There are a lot of great things in this book, so much more than zombies and a struggle for survival. At it’s base core it is about star-crossed lovers, literally and the supporting characters roles… Ms. Leyton brings to Wisteria a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, dystopic world with a twist to the paranormal romance angle!”
“The book was full of nonstop action from the beginning until the end, and I did not put it down until I had finished it. I loved the book.”
Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer http://iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.
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Bisi Leyton was born in East London in 1978. She grew up in London, Nigeria and the States, listening to the stories life and love from aunts, cousins and big sisters.
She lives in London, but has worked around Europe including France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and the Czech Republic. She has a fondness for reading graphic novels.
Bisi Leyton Links
url http://www.goodreads.com/Bisileyton
website http://bisileyton.wordpress.com
twitter username bisileyton
Links
Welcome! Today we’re interviewing Steven from Bisi Leyton’s first novel Wisteria.
Three years after the Nero Plague turned 80% of the world's people into flesh eating zombies, most humans barely understand what is happening around them. Our people are struggling to survive. One of the last human communities is the Isle of Smythe.
So, tell me a little about yourself?
What do you want to know?
What’s your name and how old are you?
Steven Hindle and I’m sixteen.
Where are you from?
I was born on the Isle of Smythe. I’ve lived here all my life. Man, I wished I’d travelled more before Nero
Tell me about your life before the Nero virus broke out?
I don’t remember much before the virus turned the world upside down. I used to drive up to London a lot to visit my mum in parliament. Oh and we’d go to Windsor to see my grandfather, but I’m guessing he’s dead now.
I’m sorry about that.
Thanks.
What do you miss the most about your old life?
Not being about to leave this town is tough. Sometimes it feels like a prison and I’m slowly losing my mind. (Sighs) The one thing I miss most of all, my mother, she was the first person I ever saw who was infected with Nero.
That must have been horrific.
I never saw her body. My father thought I was too young to actually see something like that. After seeing what’s happened to a lot of my friends, I’m thinking the old man’s right, but don’t tell them that.
You don’t get on with you dad?
He’s okay. I mean he’s busy trying a cure and I’m keeping busy.
So how do you keep busy?
Girls, school and girls, I guess
You guess? You’re not sure about girls?
Oh I’m sure. There may be million things I don’t understand, but the ladies I totally get.
You seeing anyone?
You want me to name only one? I guess Hailey mainly, Poppy sometimes, but I hang out with Wisteria …oh and then there’s Zola. She’s hot.
You hang out with Wisteria. What exactly does that mean, because she’s not really your t?
(Smiles) what do you think it means? Sure she’s not exactly my type, but she’s got a nice butt and sometimes I get a little desperate… it happens.
Right,
Don’t judge me. Deep down I’m a nice guy and seriously for Wisteria, she can’t do better than me. It’s not like there are a lot of other guys on the Island.
Come on Steven, there are 1,000 people on Smythe.
But that most of them of are even bigger losers than she is.
You know what? Let’s just to my finally question. What is your motto?
Bisi Leyton Links
url http://www.goodreads.com/Bisileyton
website http://bisileyton.wordpress.com
twitter username bisileyton
Excerpt 3
Bach must have blacked out, because the next thing he remembered was someone dragging him out of the quarantine center. After that, his next memory was waking up in a cell, handcuffed to a chair with no idea where he was. Too weak to break free, he tried anyway—to no avail.
A man in a white coat and one of the island’s guards walked into the room. Bach recognized the man in white from the school as Mr. Cheung, the mathematics teacher. Cheung walked up to Bach and injected something into his neck.
“What are you doing to me?” Back wanted to know.
“Just relax. This is going to keep you calm,” the teacher claimed.
“Is he secured now?” the soldier asked.
“He’s not going anywhere.” Cheung nodded.
The cell’s doors opened and Coles strode in with two more people dressed in white. One was Hailey’s father, Charles Davenport, and the other Bach didn’t know.
“What do you want from me, Coles?” Bach’s speech was slurred and he found it hard to think straight.
“This is the subject.” The unknown man walked up to him. “He’s stage three infected.”
“He looks remarkable. How come he’s not going crazy?” Hailey’s father asked.
“I have no clue,” Cheung replied. “Sir Charles, his blood work is clean, but when I looked at his DNA we realized there was something very wrong.”
“You saw his blood work, Tom?” Charles asked the unknown man.
“I rechecked it after Silas.” The other man nodded.
“Dr. Hindle saw the same thing that I did. He’s a post-stage three infected,” Cheung continued.
“What the hell is post-stage three infected?” Charles asked.
The teacher glanced at the island’s leader, and then at Dr. Hindle as if to say, that Charles was an idiot for asking the question.
“Stage one means he’s been exposed to the virus most likely bitten or has been kissed by someone infected. A stage one infected has no symptoms. Stage two, they get the fever and by stage three they’ve gone crazy and are dangerous to others.” Coles turned to Cheung. “There’s no other stage.”
“Well it looks like there’s one now,” Tom Hindle replied.
“Like I said, I have no clue as to what’s going on inside this boy, but it’s possible the mutation might make him immune to the disease,” Cheung said.
“At least that’s the theory. I’m pretty certain, but we need to do some more testing.” Tom nodded.
“You think we can get a cure out of this kid?” Coles gestured in Bach’s direction.
“If we’re lucky, we might get a vaccine,” Tom answered. “But he’ll give us something.”
“I cannot help you cure this disease which you gave to yourselves,” Bach seethed.
“We’ve a long way to go before we can even begin to understand what’s going on inside of him. Any talk of creating a vaccine is premature.” Cheung ignored Bach’s response. “He might not even survive that long.”
“You do know I can hear you?” Bach asked.
“I never trusted you, Bach.” Coles walked over to him. “There was something wrong with you. Doctor Hindle is going to figure it out and we’re going to unlock how you work.”
“Don’t provoke him, please, Major.” Charles signaled to Coles. “We don’t want him to become agitated.”
Bach lifted up his head and looked at the man while the room was spinning around him.
“You may be saving thousands of lives.” Cheung tried to reassure him. “You’ll save everyone, everyone including Hailey.”
“Leave her out of this,” Sir Davenport remarked.
“You do not know what you are doing. You could never help the people of this world even if you had all the scientists from before the outbreak working on this and someone gave you half a clue!” Bach seethed. “Greater men than you have tried to unlock the secrets in my Family and have failed. So will you. Your world is supposed to die.”
“You sound like you know an awful lot about this disease,” Charles Davenport remarked suspiciously.
“You know what I think?” Coles stated. “You’re scared and you’re trying to scare us because you think we’re a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls.”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me or these people. I give you my word, you won’t be killed. You will have to stay here, but you’ll be comfortable,” Cheung tried to assure him.
“So I am your prisoner?” Bach asked.
“You won’t be alone much longer, your friend Felip will soon be joining you,” Coles continued.
“No, he’s gone.” Bach grinned defiantly.
“We know. Blair saw him scaling the outer wall. We’ve got patrols looking for him. If we can find him, we’ll bring him back safely,” Sir Davenport added.
“You will not find him,” Bach stated.
“Then you’re going to be down here alone. It makes no difference to me,” Coles retorted and started to leave the room.
“Wait, Major Coles…Sir?” Bach pleaded.
The soldier paused to look back at him, still looking irritated.
“Let me say goodbye to my friends. I do not want her to feel I have abandoned her!”
“No, you leave my daughter out of this!” Sir Charles yelled.
“She’ll get over you, don’t worry,” Coles added.
“Wisteria, can I see her?” Bach ignored Sir Charles. “Please, I am asking you for a favor.”
Coles’s jaw clenched and he turned to the other soldier in the cell. “If he mentions her name again, I want you to cut out his tongue.”
Excerpt 4
A few nights later, Wisteria was locking up the library. The empty building unsettled her since she was still getting used to her new, safer job. A part of her missed being outside and learning to cope out there. She wondered now if she would ever learn the skills she needed to return to her father. Heading down from the third floor, she was startled to see Bach standing at the bottom of the stairwell. “Ah,” she cried. “You scared me.”
“The door was unlocked,” he said before she asked.
“Oh.”
He looked different. Maybe it was because he was now wearing jeans and a t-shirt, giving up his more formal 1930’s look. But that wasn’t it. She could not place it; perhaps it was because she hadn’t seen him in a while. Since she had stood up to Coles, she hadn’t set eyes on him. That was a mean feat in a community as small as the Isle of Smythe. Then again, it was Bach. Hadn’t Hailey also been scarce the last couple of days? Her jealousy rose up again and she shoved it away. “How are you?” she asked as she descended the steps. “How are Garfield and Felip? How’s Hailey?”
“How can you defend someone like Coles?” he demanded while not answering her questions.
“Bach, he’s important to me,” Wisteria said softly as she continued to make her way down the stairs. He blocked her path.
“Are you scared of him? Because I can make him very afraid of me.”
“You’re in my way.”
“Wisteria, don’t go.” His hand held her forearm. “What does he have on you? He treats everyone like they are nothing, even you, and you still stand up for him. Why?”
“You won’t understand.”
“Help me to. Please.” He let go of her hands.
Grimacing, she explained, “When we first got here, it wasn’t like this. You wouldn’t believe what it was like when the leadership council ran everything, before the soldiers got here.”
“Okay, so tell me.”
“The community was rough. Everyone had a gun or knife on them at all times. Some people hoarded food, some stole, some traded drugs, but the only thing everyone agreed on? No one was allowed across the bridge from the mainland. When the food ran out, things went from rough to toxic.” Wisteria became uneasy as she remembered.
“What changed?”
“Nothing at first—we tried to manage. Then, the leaders started trading with the sea merchants.” Wisteria shook her head and sat down on the steps. “Everyone thought they were our salvation, because they had so much food. But whenever the merchants arrived they took over and they did whatever or whoever they wanted on the island.”
“Did they do something to you?” Bach crouched down in front of her.
She closed her eyes to stop the tears that were building up in her eyes. “My mother and a few other women too, she still won’t talk about it.”
Excerpt 5
As she walked back to the ridge of the roof, Bach’s heart went with her. Someone had tried to hurt her. Tried to damage what belonged to him, and who he belonged to.
He started to feel dizzy from the volumes of strangle weed planted in the front of her house.
“Thank you so much for coming and for the guitar. It’s perfect.” She gave it back to him.
“No, it is yours, Wisteria.” He refused to take it. “Do you not like it?”
“No, I love it. It’s so beautiful.”
“Then keep it.” He kissed her neck. Knowing—hoping—his touch would soothe her pain, but he hadn’t come here to comfort her.
“Bach.” She used her instrument as a shield as she moved away from him. “It’s a bad idea. You won’t understand.”
“You are right. I do not get why you would refuse something you apparently love,” he whispered while rubbing her forearms and taking in her scent.
“If I accept your kindness, then I’ll have to face the consequences. I don’t know if I can face those.”
“You cannot face accepting my kindness, or is it accepting me that you cannot face?”
“Um…?”
“Tell me that you do not feel the same,” he whispered. “That the moment you first saw me that I did not get inside your head. Tell me that you do not think about me all of the time when we are not together?”
The dark-eyed girl did not answer.
Wishing he could will her to speak, he pressed her against his chest. Briefly, he noticed a black spot at the base of her neck, where he had kissed her, and then it was gone. “Okay, Wisteria. Then tell me that you want me to leave, and that you do not care if you never ever see me again.” He felt like someone else was speaking for him, once again. The questions became pointless as he found himself still planting kisses along her neck and the sides of her face.
“I can’t tell you that, Bach,” she replied softly, her voice breaking. “Because it’s not true.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly.
Desperately wanting to kiss her luscious-looking lips, he leaned into her.
Wisteria reached up to him, tugging his head down as she stood on the very tips of her toes, seemingly just as eager to taste his lips.
“Wisteria, I cannot.” He broke away before it happened. “I do not want this.”
* * * * *
Wrapping her arms around herself, she moved away from him. Once again, humiliated and feeling foolish. “Goodnight, Bach!” She strode angrily to the side of the roof in order to climb down.
He grabbed her and held her back
The guy came here just to tease her, yet again! Didn’t he know he was hurting her? Didn’t he care? “I’m tired of all this nonsense. I’m actually tired and need some sleep. I’m done with this. All of this!” She should’ve left the roof when she saw him appear. “Let go, so I can go.”
“Wisteria, it is not that.” Exhaling heavily, he released her. “My people could kill you if they knew I wanted you.”
This wasn’t at all what she’d expected him to say. “What?”
“I am in love with you. I do not know why, but I am. And it is selfish, because I just want you for myself.” Sadness filled his eyes as he spoke.
“Why would they do that to me?”
“Because you are human and because we see humans as Terran, or dirt people.”
“And you believe that too? So why are you here, living among us, if we’re so disgusting?”
“You are not disgusting. You are beautiful.” Rubbing his temples, he seemed troubled and bewildered. “I came to Terra as a rite of passage. To be considered a man, to take a journey and experience the wild.”
“The wild?”
“I chose Terra, or Earth, because I came here as a child. Your people treated me so badly in the past. When I learned about the Nero disease, I wanted to see your world.” He paused. “You were right when you said there was something wrong with me.”
“Bach, it cannot be that bad.” Stepping up to him, she stroked her fingers along his biceps.
The sweet motion made him smile at her, but he still looked distressed.
“Like about Garfield, you let him live with you. And now you’re here with me.”
“You are not like the rest.”
“Neither are you. You’re not so cold and cruel like Enric or patronizing like Felip. They think they’re better than us. You just hate people because you’re a jerk, Bach.”
“Ha.” Bach laughed. “A jerk?”
“You’re a big jerk.” As the final word rolled from her lips, he kissed her.
She was stunned for a second. His lips tasted like a strange, tantalizing spice.
He squeezed her against his larger frame and rested his right hand on the small of her back.
She fidgeted, unsure about what to do with her hands. She tried to kiss him back, but she struggled because she was so short.
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My Wisteria Review
This novel was an action packed thrill ride with tons of suspense and romance along with lots of twists and turns. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat and eagerly flipping my kindle pages.
I will be honest; I am not a zombie type person. I never read anything in the horror genre, but this one sounded like it was more. And it is, its like a mix of action, mystery, adventure, thriller, romance - it definitely shouldn't just be limited to being labeled as horror, and it has a dystopian feel to it as well. Really I was thinking of the Walking Dead tv show when reading, though different, but with the similarities of the “zombiles”
I will say its not my kind of book, as a whole. It had its twist and turns that kept it interesting. I really didn’t know it was considered horror until after I started reading, and seen someone say that somewhere. I did have to be careful when I read it, not a night before bed like I usually do. I would have bad dreams.
So basically Wisteria's life changes when a routine assignment goes wrong and she is left stranded in zombie infested territory. Saved by a mysterious young boy who she has an odd connection with. Bach is an awkward but utterly handsome hero and Wisteria struggles to understand who he is, why he so easily survives in the middle of the infected . Wisteria starts to wonder if there is anyone she can trust in her life.
Bach is a mystery; he had taken Wisteria to his apartment where he lives with 2 friends. He isn't human, and is not even from Earth. He actually thinks humans or Terrans (as his people call them) are animals. Things get strange to me with this part, about Bach being there to see the end of Earth, and that he feels Wisteria is someone from his past, but she doesn't remember.
So we have that mystery. Wisteria is actually from Ilse of Smythe, a small city that had survived the Nero disease outbreak. Since the island has so much protection, there are not many cases of biters there.
We get a little romance started, with Wisteria and Bach, but they can’t be together as its forbidden by his people. I guess so, if they see humans as animals.
Overall it is an exciting read, and think people who like zombie type, in dystopian type world, with the mysteries too, will love this. I liked it better than I thought I would.
1/2
Give it a try. 4 1/2 out of 5 stars for me. I highly recommend it to readers who want to try something unique and different from most books out there right now
I got this book free at Amazon, but could have gotten it with the tour too, for my honest review. I just already had it.
If you like my review, would like the support at Amazon if you can, Here,Thanks. If you could like it at Goodreads too, that would be great. here.
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