Daniel Marks: Velveteen

Bio: Daniel Marks writes young adult horror and fantasy, spends way too much time glued to the internets and collects books obsessively (occasionally reading them). He’s been a psychotherapist for children and adolescents, a Halloween store manager, a cafeteria janitor (gag) and has survived earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons to get where he is today, which is to say, in his messy office surrounded by half empty coffee cups. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, Caroline, and three furry monsters with no regard for quality carpeting. He is represented by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management

Debut: VELVETEEN (October 9th, 2012/Delacorte Press-Random House Children's Books)

Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that's not the problem.

The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it's not a fiery inferno, it's certainly no heaven. It's gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn't leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what's really on her mind.

Bonesaw.

Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she's figured out just how to do it. She'll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It'll be brutal . . . and awesome.

But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen's obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she's willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.

Velveteen can't help herself when it comes to breaking rules . . . or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.

Somewhere between Beetlejuice and Jennifer’s Body, this dark debut introduces a vibrant and violent new heroine (and hero). Readers will be breathless for more of its quirky blend of horror, humor, and one twisted romance.

The Five Whatevers of the Apocalypse

1. Um...who washed their socks in my bathtub full of drinking water?

2. Twinkies really don't last forever. Sigh.

3. I don't care if it is radiated, young man. You'll sit there until you've eaten all of the delicious rat your mother's prepared!

4. I don't care what you say, rat does NOT taste like chicken!

5. Who invited the freakin' cannibals? Really?