Guest Post--Nick Wilford

Thanks for having me over as part of my blog tour today, Sandra. Today, one of the young characters from my book would like to take you on a tour around his hometown.

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Hi! Mallinger here, but you can call me Mal. I’d like to show you around a bit of my hometown, Fusterbury. It’s a big place, lots of people live here, but we all get along and rub along OK. Let’s start off with my lovely home. Some great work on the mud walls there – when it comes to repairs, we all have to muck in and do our bit. I’ve got a nice pile of straw just over at the side there, really comfy. It’s a bit cramped in here, with me, my dad, and three brothers and four sisters. But it used to be four brothers and six sisters. And my mum. She died when my littlest sister was born. Yeah, we’ve got a problem with this disease we’ve got here, can’t seem to get rid of it. But it makes us appreciate the time we get together even more. Looks like the kids are playing a nice game of noughts and crosses with sticks and leaves. Let’s go and have a walk around outside.

So I’ve got all my neighbours here. They all live in pretty similar huts, but we like to think ours is the best. Just a little joke, though. We all help each other where we can. Lots of kids running around today, looks like the rain’s off for a bit. Everyone has big families here, means there’s a better chance of the family name carrying on. There’s a few kids making a big castle out of the mud. Looks great! Come on, let’s see some more of the town. Watch out for the river. I know it’s a bit brown, but it’s where we get our water. We try to boil as much of it as we can.

Just a few streets up this way, we’ve got the town square. A good few shops round here, we can get our clothes patched up and there’s a cobbler’s too. It helps if you’ve got something to trade, like a good juicy rat. There’s also a medicine man who deals in these creams, they relieve some of the physical symptoms of the disease but we all know they don’t do anything to cure it. Oh well, whatever helps. Then of course, we’ve got the centrepiece of the city – the Monument of the Dead. It’s not morbid or grim or anything, it’s our way of keeping a part of our loved ones here with us when they pass on. A bit of them gets added to the pile, sometimes just a finger bone or a whole skull. It’s a big pile, so we often have to shore it up if we get a landslip somewhere.

Apart from that, we’ve got outlying villages in the countryside, dotted all around. They might have their own monuments, but I haven’t visited. Everything I need is right here. We haven’t got much, I know, but we’ve got each other. That’s what counts.

Title: Black & White

Author: Nick Wilford

Genre: YA dystopian Series #: 1 of 3

Release date: 18th September 2017

Publisher: Superstar Peanut Publishing

Blurb:

What is the price paid for the creation of a perfect society?

In Whitopolis, a gleamingly white city of the future where illness has been eradicated, shock waves run through the populace when a bedraggled, dirt-stricken boy materialises in the main street. Led by government propaganda, most citizens shun him as a demon, except for Wellesbury Noon – a high school student the same age as the boy.

Upon befriending the boy, Wellesbury feels a connection that he can’t explain – as well as discovering that his new friend comes from a land that is stricken by disease and only has two weeks to live. Why do he and a girl named Ezmerelda Dontible appear to be the only ones who want to help?

As they dig deeper, everything they know is turned on its head – and a race to save one boy becomes a struggle to redeem humanity.

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Meet the author:

Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those early morning times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction, with a little freelance editing and formatting thrown in. When not working he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also the editor of Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology for Andrew. Visit him at his blog or connect with him on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon.

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