Breaking Cadence is a post-apocalyptic dystopian tale mixed with infectious zombies, giant spiders, a megalomaniac and a dash of romance.

You’ve got our interest! Tell us more.
Our heroine, Cadence Laurence, has suffered pain and humiliation at the hands of the town committee, but the saving grace of her torture means nothing when her brother, Alex, and his girlfriend, Kitty, break the rules for the last time.

The only place they have left to go is on the run in the unforgiving Wastelands, a place where sand spiders and the Infected become the least of their problems when Cady’s ex-lover escapes her darkened past and deepens their plight with an agenda of his own.

Dodging Wastelanders out for blood and Kitty’s father determined for revenge, can Cadence avoid a bite from the Infected long enough to save her two wards and escape or will her ex-lover’s plans destroy them all?

What genre is it?
It’s a lovely dark dystopian fantasy.

Those who enjoy action, romance and a thrill of mystery will really enjoy Breaking Cadence.

Tell us more about Cadence.
Cadence is a survivor. For the last few years she has lived on the edge of the town the committee controls, permitted to hold one of the undesirable outlying properties as part of her penance for committing a crime against their laws. Their process of Decontamination had all but destroyed her.

They won’t touch her again.

She’s fixed her broken heart into one of stone, taking no prisoners, and leaving the love that was left behind for her almost estranged family. But Breaking Cadence is a test of the fractures that time has placed on her too burdened shoulders.

Have you written any other books that we should read next?
Just to make my life difficult, I released yet another first of a series just before Breaking Cadence was published.

Oh really? Tell us about it.
Preying On Time is set in a different, but still slightly dystopian, universe where the human race has evolved to produce subspecies gifted (or not, as the case may be) with supernatural powers. Some can see the dead, some can use magic and others can take the form of the wolf…

But if you want to ease into this kind of world slowly then perhaps you should try Desecrated Bonds first. It’s a short story and a stand alone, which describes similar powers to those mentioned in Preying On Time without totally connecting to the same universe.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
Primarily a fantasy hound, I’m an animal lover with a writing style that meanders between dark dystopian and urban fantasy. I live by the seaside with my pragmatic other half and our cats in the lovely UK county of Yorkshire (where tea drinking is expected and dunking biscuits is mandatory).

A big fan of social media, chances are you’ll catch me online at some point during the day. My day job is friendlier than my plot lines might have you expect and my house is far less cluttered than my head, surprisingly. Occasionally I attempt to garden or clean, but I’m more often found with my face buried in new writing or the writing of others.

You mentioned social media. Where can we find you, if we fancy a chat?
You can find me on twitter @jocastalizzbeth or on my facebook fan page at http://facebook.com/RebeccaClareSmithsWriting.

Do you have a website?
I do and it is here: http://rebeccaclaresmith.blogspot.co.uk.

What’s next for you?
Next is sequels! Obviously there’s a sequel for Breaking Cadence in the works, but there’s also a sequel to Preying On Time on the go. Plus many other things such as anthologies and short stories!

How easily do new storylines come to you? If we give you four random words – Man, Woman, Mexico, Future – can you give us a brief storyline?
New stories come fairly easily, but they’re usually from dreams. Using the prompts given, though, I’d write about a young couple honeymooning in Mexico. They go for a walk along the beach at night when her new husband is shot down by a group of men who surround her. It turns out that he’s not who he says he is and getting her to Mexico was a ploy to ransom her off to her rich father.

Only now a rival gang have attacked and captured them. Her father refuses to pay the ransom, leaving her heartbroken, miserable and betrayed in the Mexican stronghold. As the years pass by she convinces the men to let her join them, becoming a fearsome fighter under a pseudonym until the day a slip up hands her over to the authorities.

Will the agent in charge discover her true identity and hand her back to her father with the humiliation of his desertion or will a real love come from a heart that has been corrupted by pain and time…?