BooksChatter: ☀☄✉ Brood X - Michael Phillip Cash

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion, an Apocalyptic Horror by Michael Phillip Cash (4 May 2013, Red Feather Publishing, 309 pages).

Don't miss our interview with author Michael Phillip Cash, where he talks to us about The History Major.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first chapter with Amazon Look Inside. Brood X is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Trailer | Teaser | Author Q&A | About the Author | Tour Stops

Synopsis

Seth is laid off from work. His wife Lara just found out they are expecting a baby this summer. Seth plans on documenting the entire pregnancy with his brand new digital camcorder.

During an evening home watching television, the news reports that a swarm of cicada (Brood Ten) are expected to overwhelm the entire Northeast.

Brood Ten is vicious and ready to invade.

During a sweltering summer night, Brood Ten emerges and wreaks havoc with the electric grid, phone and cell service, wi-fi, food and water supply. Civilization as they know it is gone.

Seth and Lara are thrown back to the stone age in their own home with trillions of cicada trying to deposit their eggs and breed.

Fast paced and filled with tension, Brood Ten is the perfect summer read when you’re sitting outside listening to the cicadas sing.

Teasers

Excerpt | Guest Post |

Excerpt

Expecting

“If pregnancy were a book they would cut out the last two chapters.”
- Anonymous

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and would you be mine? Would… you be… my neighbor?” The disembodied voice sang Mr. Roger’s theme song as the camera panned a peaceful, affluent community.

It was an old-fashioned hamlet, each house nestled on tightly manicured foliage on expensive half-acre plots. The streets were filled with the reckless driving of ninety-nine-pound, perfectly coiffed mommies in their expensive and oversized SUVs. If the speed limit was thirty-five down a residential path, they were pushing at least fifty. The only blot on the horizon was how to fit soccer, ballet, piano, and yoga class between four p. m. and six p. m., so the skinless and boneless chicken would have time to cook to perfection and the quinoa wouldn’t be al dente.

Seth, the singer of this charming ditty, took his new camera on a tour of his property. Small patches of snow covered the lawn, remnants of an unusually early November snowstorm that happened two weeks ago.

Although it was chilly outside after that freak weather event, it had been unseasonably mild. “It was funny,” Seth mused. The anchors on television had turned weather into newsworthy items: rain was an event, storms became a “super-event,” and snowstorms and the media were on a first-name basis.

He looked at a tree on his property. Magnolia buds had stupidly started sprouting.

As he spoke, his breath floated before the lens of the camera. “Casa de Fletcher, baby.”

An attractive home, it was made lovingly with yellow siding, deep red brick, and a rolling front lawn. The sun was hanging low, its weak light peeking through bare branches of the cherry tree.

Seth ambled to the front door, still humming. A silver “number one” dangled off a single nail. Touching it with a finger, he watched the late afternoon light reflect off its shiny surface.

“Hmm, I thought I fixed that. Oh well,” he chuckled. Bouncing the screen door against the jam, he laughed at the groaning springs. “Guess I have to fix that too.” Still filming, he tried to get it to align with his knee, in a half-hearted attempt to get it to close properly. “Looks like the bugs are getting in this year. Note to self: stock up on Raid.”

Unlocking the door, he walked into a warmly decorated foyer filled with the junk of newlywed dreams. An antique school clock frozen at eleven o'clock dominated one wall. It had been their first big expense, and they got it in Connecticut on a road trip. Next to it, an old milk jug molded from local clay held dry flowers. It was full of lead and other contaminants. He wondered briefly if the poison in the clay affected kids a hundred years ago.

On an opposite wall hung a couple of their wedding shots in artsy black and white. He didn’t get it; color was so much more natural. Then came a few candid vacation shots and of course the obligatory parents’ pictures. He and his mom caught in a feral snarl that passed as a smile. The Cleaver family picture, right out of a Leave It To Beaver episode— Lara, her two older brothers, and Ward and June in front of the tree— and no, it couldn’t be, all in matching reindeer sweaters. He shuddered thinking about that first Christmas he met the parents and their android sons.

The homey clatter of pots being filled with water drifted from the kitchen. His wife was moving ever so efficiently at the granite counter, totally absorbed in the process of making dinner.

Man, he loved her ass. She was wearing black yoga pants and a tight wifebeater, well, really a husband-beater T-shirt. Her black hair was pulled into a sloppy bun held together with a scrunchie. She either just finished at the yoga studio or got home from school early. Lara taught third grade locally and loved it.

In a sibilant whisper he shared with his silent audience, “And rarely seen, a Long Island housewife is gathering her catch to make dinner.”

“Seth! You scared me.” She spun around smiling, enjoying his joke.

Seth continued, “Though usually camera-shy, these sophisticated hunters rely on their great skill of calling out for delivery…”

“Veggies and baked chicken cutlets,” she said with an effervescent smile.

“Me want sushi.” Seth hit his chest with his free hand and grunted like an ape.

“I cooked. We’re eating home. Where did you get that?” She pointed her wooden spoon at the camera. Lara’s eyes shined with inner excitement.

“Hey, take off your clothes, put on your apron, and I can tape us both cooking.” He nuzzled her neck as the camera filmed the lower cabinets.

“Cooking what?” she said with a laugh.

“We could sweat the onions.” His voice became a sexy whisper. “Hot and steamy vegetables sounds right.” He pulled the camera up as his lips moved to the back of her neck. “I know just how I want to roast my meat…”

“And I can butter your buns.” She spun around and quickly kissed him back. “No, I think not. Chicken cutlets, skinless. And dry vegetables for you, my boy. We want to stay healthy.” She gave him a tender smile.

“We? When did you become French? Oui, we?”

“I’d like to see France one day.” Her large blue eyes misted over. Seth looked at his wife, really looked at his wife. She was gorgeous. Snow White in the flesh. Her porcelain skin glowed, jet black hair, ruby red lips, and she was all his.

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Guest Post

10 Things Reader's Would Be Surprised To Know About You

10. I write self-help books under the pen name Michael Samuels. My book Just Ask the Universe is still in the top 5 on Amazon Spiritual after 6 years.

9. I am highly allergic to tree nuts, peanuts, tomatoes, eggplant, chick peas, and avocado.

8. I haven’t eaten vegetables or fruit in over two years.

7. I haven’t eaten bread, rice, pasta or potatoes in 6 years.

6. I only eat meat, dairy and butter.

5. I take cold showers every day.

4. I love to drive, because I hate being a passenger in a car.

3. I have a vacation condo in Las Vegas, and now building a house in Orlando.

2. I don’t like dark, scary rides at Theme Parks.

1. I have a very, very, very, big, enormous, monstrous, humongous, gigantic…tongue. I make Gene Simmons look small.

What Does Your Office Look Like

I have a vision board with all the things I want to manifest in my life. I have an Ocean’s Eleven poster. Three computer screens. A map of America. A framed photo of the Las Vegas Strip. Tons of pictures of my gorgeous wife and wonderful children. 

A Day In Your Writing Life

6am – 9am: Up at 6am every day. Meditate. Cold Shower. Bacon, eggs and cheddar cheese omelet for breakfast.

9am – 4pm: Research and development. Google is my mistress.

4pm – 6pm: Cook dinner for my family – generally pork rind chicken cutlets, cheeseburgers no bun, meatballs, anything zero carb.

6pm – 8pm: Play with kids. Showers, baths, etc…

8pm: Tuck in kids

8:30pm: Tuck in wife

8:31pm – Midnight: WRITE!!!!

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Brood X
Available NOW!

About the Author

Michael Phillip Cash is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. His novels are best-sellers on Amazon under their genres – Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense, Ghost, Action Adventure, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Horror. Michael writes full-time and lives on the North Shore of Long Island with his wonderful wife and screaming children.

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