Guest Blog & Giveaway: Elixir by Anna Abner

UFI welcomes Anna Abner Author of Elixir. Thanks for Joining us!!

Grandma Abner’s Apocalypse Bread 

Pretend it’s the zombie apocalypse and you have only enough electricity in the generator to power the oven. The fresh milk and eggs have been substituted for dehydrated powder. 

Ingredients

2 tablespoons yeast 
2/3 cup dry milk with 2 cups water (or the equivalent to 2 cups milk)
4 tablespoons egg crystals with 6 tablespoons water (or the equivalent to 2 eggs)
½ cup warm water
8 tablespoons shortening
7 cups flour
6 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons salt

Directions 

Step One: Mix wet ingredients in a bowl with a spoon. Add shortening.

Step Two: Slowly add flour and dry ingredients. Mix well.

Step Three: Knead dough by hand until mixed and soft. Sprinkle extra flour on hands and counter as you knead.

Step Four: Raise the dough in a bowl (covered with a cloth) at room temperature for one hour.

Step Five: Grease inside of 13x9 glass baking dish with shortening.

Step Six: Knead dough again by hand until soft.

Step Seven: Separate dough into about 16 balls and roll smooth by hand, arranging them in greased dish.

Step Eight: Raise the dough in the dish (covered with a cloth) for another hour at room temperature.

Step Nine: Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Can be eaten warm or cold. Wrap them up and stuff them into your backpack before you set out on the open road to find other survivors.

 

**When I was writing the Red Plague Trilogy I wanted the survivors to make a food item that was both a little unusual but also reminiscent of home. This is a family recipe that can be found in a 1977 church cookbook of recipes handed down for generations.

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One of my first memories is dangling over the arm of our living room sofa telling myself a post-apocalyptic survival tale in which my mother and I were the last two people on earth. It was so fun, I never stopped telling stories. In high school, I faked being ill so I could stay home to work on a novel about a nanny who falls in love with her boss' bad boy nephew.

As an adult I earned a college degree, got married, and had a child, but I never stopped writing. It only got more fun. I wrote through my lunch breaks at work. I wrote on the treadmill at the gym. Eventually, I had dozens of short stories, novellas, and full-length novels piling up on thumb drives and in plastic tubs.

Now, I'm ready to share my stories with you, starting with The Dark Caster Series and the Red Plague Trilogy. I hope you love reading them as much as I loved writing them!

Find Anna and her books

Website / Goodreads / Twitter / Facebook

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Elixir
Red Plague #1

 The red plague has devastated the human race, turning billions of people into zombies with red eyes and an insatiable hunger for human flesh.

The virus sweeps through the population so quickly a possible cure is left to rot. Seventeen-year-old Maya Solomon may be the only survivor who knows where it is. But to reach the lab in Raleigh, North Carolina she will have to outrun the infected boy tracking her every step and cross into a city swarming with monsters.

Excerpt: 
 

A buzzing circular saw woke me five minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. Instant, achy terror consumed me. I scrambled out of bed in my PJs and crouched at the end of the hall, peeking around the corner into the living room beyond the foyer. 

"Dad?" I hissed. 

He stood, hands on hips, in front of our big screen TV staring at local news. 

I sagged against the wall in relief. For a moment I'd thought... But no. We weren't being attacked by red-eyed plague victims. 

Dad hadn't heard me, but around and between his arms I watched the agitated news anchor struggle through her report. 

"If you are in a heavily infected area," the hollow-eyed brunette read off the teleprompter, "you are instructed to shelter in place. Do not attempt to travel. Roads and highways are impassable, particularly in Raleigh and Charlotte. The safest thing for you to do is stay where you are. Lock your doors and windows and wait for further instruction." 

A tiny hiccup of fright escaped my throat, and Dad whipped his head around. His normally slicked back blonde hair was dry and messy as if he hadn't bothered to comb it at all. 

"Maya," he exclaimed, pasting on a friendly smile. But under the positive facade I could tell he was just as terrified as I was. The world was falling to pieces and we both knew it.

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