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I had to share this for the title alone. It cracks me up!!!!!!

I am a sucker for a great cover and it’s usually the first thing that hooks me. I am happy to have Dana Hammer here to share her thoughts of the cover for her latest novel, The Cannibal’s Guide To Fasting.

The Cover — The Cannibal’s Guide to Fasting

First of all, I just want to thank the folks at Cinnabar Moth for putting together such an awesome cover. I myself have never been good at graphic design. To give you some idea of how bad at graphic design I am — I created the programs for my mother’s funeral … and they were vetoed. They were so bad that people simply could not allow them to be used, even at the risk of offending a grieving daughter. So any graphic designer who does a good job is basically a godlike magician in my eyes.

The cover for The Cannibal’s Guide to fasting shows a bunch of pressed wildflowers on the front. Igor, my main character, presses wildflowers as a hobby, and as a distraction from his craving for human meat. In his former life, as a research scientist, he thought botany was a silly hobby, not worthy of serious consideration. Now, he spends his free time pressing, observing, and meticulously labeling the specimens he collects. The pressed wildflowers are a symbol for how his world has changed.

The back cover features a tomato-based beverage. For legal reasons, this beverage does not have a name, but if you read the book, you will likely be able to guess what it is. I was especially pleased with the drink graphic, and I think it turned out beautifully.

The Cannibal’s Guide to Fasting by Dana Hammer

GENRE: Comedic horror

BLURB

Igor Fenenko, a former research scientist, is a scary, scary man. Not only is he a massive bodybuilder with a spider tattooed on his face, he has also been infected with Pestis Manducans — viral cannibalism. Igor tried to resist indulging, but his research specimens smelled so delicious. Who did it hurt, really, to nibble a corpse?

Caught, disgraced, and sent to a ‘rehabilitation’ center, Igor is now forced to live in a government-mandated Containment Center. He spends his days pressing wildflowers, growing blueberries, and doing his best to avoid human meat. More than anything, he wants a cure for the virus that has ruined his life.

Igor’s brother, Karl, is also infected with Pestis. But unlike Igor, he does not live in a Containment Center. He lives down by the river, where he runs a cannibal rights group. At first, the group seems harmless enough, if a bit creepy and overzealous. But when Igor discovers their evil practices, he is forced to intervene.

Aided and opposed by rich eccentrics who have their own agendas, Igor must use brains and muscles to find a cure while fighting the urge to turn brains and muscles into a delicious lunch.

EXCERPT

Igor’s home is a single-wide trailer in a “community” that the government has set up for former cannibals. Decent, lawabiding, non-infected folks do not want man-eaters to live in their neighborhoods, but they won’t go so far as to demand executions for the infected, and so the forced cannibal community was born.

For a time, the infected were held in prisons and jails, until those became too overcrowded, and the state was forced to find other solutions. Now, the official plan of action is this: identify the cannibals, send them to a treatment center, and then house them in secure, guarded communities with their own kind.

Igor’s community is one of the nicer ones. The trailers are small but clean, and the neighborhood is kept tidy and quiet. Each trailer even has a small patch of lawn, for residents to use as they please. Igor uses his for fruit and vegetable gardening. Some other people plant flowers, and some of them plant nothing at all, but fill their yards with furniture or above-ground pools.

Other communities aren’t so lucky. Igor is grateful for his home, despite the security guards who occasionally take their jobs a bit too seriously. Despite the constant scrutiny of the inspectors, despite the fact that his ID lists his address as “High Risk Containment Center” and that any time he has to show that ID to anyone, he gets glares or looks of disgust or flat refusals of service. He is grateful, because without it, and without a job, and without anyone willing to take him in, he would likely be homeless.

AUTHOR Bio and Links

Dana Hammer is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. She has won over forty awards and honors for her writing, few of which generated income, all of which were deeply appreciated. She is not a cannibal.

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