How To Lose Weight And Survive The Apocalypse

Chapter 1

Hello, gorgeous reader!  "A new book, BlondeAndDangerous?" I hear you cry.  "But what about the other books you haven't finished writing on your profile?  Don't you have a long enough attention span to complete a book any more???"

Okay, maybe that's just how I talk to myself.

But still, I'd like to acknowledge for my constant readers that I do have unfinished stories - and sometimes, that's how it goes.  I took a break from writing Tender, and that's when The Curves Ahead happened, which if you've read, you'd probably agree was worth the delay.

There's something appealing about disaster stories; it's weirdly comforting to consider the worst-case scenario to drag you away from stressing over the small stuff for a while.  I wanted to write a book about the end of the world to distract myself - plus there's a small, superficial part of me that always wondered if I'd lose weight if society fell apart.  Like if I spent all my time walking or riding or running from danger, eating from the land, surely my extra kilos would melt away - like a boot camp but with the imminent threat of death to create extra motivation.

A final note: I'm trying something new with this story - I'm not going to define the racial characteristics of my main characters.  This might sound weird, but when I picture a book character, I automatically imagine that they look kinda like me unless I'm told otherwise.  Maybe you're the same, but then as you read, the character suddenly has blue eyes or poker straight hair or something else you don't have and the illusion is ruined.

So whether you'd like Karla and Rueben to present as Japanese, African, Indian, Islander, Aboriginal or anything else you identify as, I'll leave their looks up to your imagination :)   The book is set in Australia, but we're a pretty multi-cultural land.

Much love and happy reading,

Kate J. Squires, August 2019  

*

The end of the world began on a Tuesday. "I'm not even surprised," I said to my team as we watched newsreader weep on the office TV. "Whenever something truly crappy happens in my life, it almost always goes down on a Tuesday."

Bailey, my assistant, shrugged. "If the world has to end, way better to happen on a Tuesday than a weekend. Like what if it was Friday and Nev's weekly Tinder profile update got interrupted? Now that's a real tragedy."

"Shut up, Bailey," said Neveah, throwing a box of tissues across the room, then smoothing her chemically straightened hair back into place.

"You shut up, you walking cliché." Bailey threw the tissues back at her.

Nev ducked, wobbling on her high heels. "Ugh, you're such a knob, Bailey."

"Gender neutral insults, please," growled Simon from his place on the couch.

"Knob is gender neutral."

"Knob refers to male genitalia. Not a gender-neutral insult, and therefore not an appropriate slur for Bailey." Simon was always a defender of political correctness, which was usually handy when people stuffed up around Bailey. Not so much when we had bigger problems, like the disintegration of civilisation as we knew it.

"OMG," said Nev. "The bloody world is ending and you still want to friggen correct and insult me? You guys are impossible!"

Simon retorted, "'Guys' isn't gender neutral either."

"Well, how else do I yell at both of you? Karla banned me from saying 'yewse!'"

Bailey winced. "Your voice could make a banshee buy earplugs."