[Blog Tour] Kill Or Cure by Pixie Britton — Zombies, High Stakes, and Sibling Bonds!

It’s my stop with MTMC Tours to talk about Kill or Cure by Pixie Britton!

I just finished reading it and wow, it will leave you heart beating fast (and frantically?! after that ending!!) as you tumble into this highs takes adventure of zombies and running for your life and unexpected allies and tight sibling bonds. The story follows Alyx as she ends up on the run from her tight-knit community when her little brother Tommy gets “infected”. Aka, from zombies. But Alyx isn’t about to mercy-kill her little brother. She’s getting him out of there and she’s not going to let anything happen to him. There starts an adventure and zombie battles and being caught up in a corrupt military base and almost losing everything … while gaining new allies and (possibly 👀👌🏻) new love.

5 Things You Will Find in Kill Or Cure!

• Super tight sibling bonds and family love. Alyx will literally die for Tommy, and the way she cares for him is so adorable the whole way through. They also adore their uncle Joe, who even deserted his post in the military to be a surrogate-dad for them.
• Zombiessss. They’re called the Infected here, and yes they want to eat your brains. Although their are secrets and mutations with this virus so all is not as it seems.
• High stakes. Like VERY high. When they’re not being nearly-eaten, there are human depraved monsters to contend with too. Also can we appreciate that Alyx has a SWORD. I appreciate.
• Lots of surprising and mysterious allies. From Winter in the woods to Suzie from the military base to Colt who has quite the smouldering eyes.
• Fast-pacing. The book is quite small so I whipped through really fast. It keeps the tension high the whole time. Although the kids do get a moment to nap which they deserve!!!

I’ve got an interview with Pixie Britton coming up and also a giveaway, so make sure you come enter!

Also it’s available as an audiobook, so come listen to the sample too!

She’s on a desperate quest to protect her family. But will defending them save the planet or result in her doom?
Alyx Silverthorne’s broken world is falling apart. With her parents dead and her little brother Tommy infected, she fears she’s about to lose everything that matters. But when her beloved sibling dies and returns to life stronger than before, their only choice is a dangerous cross-country journey to the capital for answers.
Teaming up with her deserter uncle and the best friend in love with her, they arrive at a secret military base wondering if Tommy is in fact the cure. But the affection of a strapping young soldier is cold comfort when his sinister commander takes a terrifying interest in her family.
Will Alyx survive the lies of the living or be consumed by the mouths of the dead?
Kill or Cure is the gut-wrenching first book in the Kill or Cure post-apocalyptic dystopian teen fiction series. If you like feisty young heroines, struggles against chaos, and teenage love, then you’ll adore Pixie Britton’s action-packed trilogy.

Amazon | Audible | Book Depository | Goodreads!

Pixie Britton is an Amazon best-selling author, occasional podcaster and public speaker. When she’s not writing her debut YA series, Kill or Cure, she’s working with local schools running creative writing workshops and taking pictures of her cat. Her author career started on the social media platform Wattpad, where her debut novel gained 100k reads within five months. Shortly after, she approached Troubador publishing in the UK and subsequently published the Kill or Cure series. She lives in a small town outside of London called Leigh-on-sea with her husband and adorable fur baby Pudding. As an all-round book nerd and fan girl, she loves to discuss Stranger Things, The Handmaids Tale, The Walking Dead and any film in the Marvel Universe. Find her at — Website | Instagram | Twitter

Hi Pixie, thanks for chatting with me today! Can you tell us 3 facts about your main character, Alyx Silverthorne?

Hey lovely, how are you? Thanks so much for interviewing me today. Ooooh great question. So, the first thing I would say about Alyx is that she would do anything for her little brother Tommy. In fact, I would say, there’s isn’t much that she wouldn’t do for him. For Alyx, protecting her family is the most important thing. She would choose Tommy over any boyfriend, or even her own safety. She’s fiercely protective of him throughout the entire series, even to her own detriment.

The second thing I would say is, she is highly adaptable, even when she is completely out of her depth. She has the ability to think on her feet, and she’s an excellent judge of character too. The third thing I would say is, she’s actually pretty funny. Not quite as funny as her best friend Will, who honestly, has some of the best lines in the series. But she has a dry sense of humour, which is super important when things get bad.

I did love the quips Alyx and will throw around, that’s for sure! What’s your favourite thing about writing dystopian?

I’m kind of obsessed with all things dystopian and I always have been. I love to write about strong female protagonists overcoming impossible odds. But I also like to create flawed characters too. I want my characters to be relatable because no one is perfect. I like to imagine how I would react in an extreme dystopian scenario, and then I try to capture that within my story.

You definitely gave these characters some impossible odds to overcome 😪🙌🏻 (they didn’t catch a break!! 🥺) Can you tell us your Best vs Worst parts of the writing process?

The best part of the writing process is when I become fully immersed in the story. Sometimes, I will just fall into a rhythm and I can feel the words flowing through me. On days like that, I become so consumed in my work, I forget to eat – which I know isn’t very healthy. But it feels soooo good. That’s when the writing process sets my soul on fire.

On the other hand, when I’m really tired and my freelance work is starting to dominate my time, I can stare at a blank page for an hour. That’s when I hate it. I’ve got better at recognising when I’m having a bad day, and at times like that, you need to walk away and try again tomorrow. There’s no point pushing through just to hit your daily target, especially if the creativity isn’t flowing. If I’m not feeling it, I’ll put my story down, grab a cup of tea and go back to my plotting document. Just having that distance allows me to think about why I’m struggling. Is it because I’m tired and I need to focus on some self-care, or is it because something isn’t working in the story?

I find it so hard to write when I’m overtired too (we have to take care of ourselves!!) Now I love author origin stories, so how long did it take KILL OR CURE to go from seed of an idea all the way to published novel?

I came up with the idea for Kill or Cure during my morning commute into London. I was daydreaming on the train and listening to one of my favourite bands, Sigur Ros, when the opening scene popped into my head. Throughout the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the main character Alyx standing in the forest. It was like a memory or something, and I couldn’t shake the image from my mind. That night I went home and started to write it down. That was the day that Kill or Cure was born.

At this stage, I had no idea if this story was good. I passed it to friends and family, who all seemed to enjoy it, but like most writers, I always doubted myself. For a while, I didn’t have the courage to pursue it any further, so for over a year it sat in my drawer gathering dust. And then one night I was sat down the pub with a couple of old friends, and I was moaning about my crappy day job. They are both creatives and told me that I needed a project that was just for me. That night, after a few frosty beers, I promised them I would post my story onto Wattpad and see what happened. Within five months, I had over 100k reads and hundreds of amazing reviews. Following my success on Wattpad, in 2017 I approached Troubador publishing at the London Book Fair and told them about my story. The rest is history.

We’ll we are definitely glad you took the plunge and followed your heart here 😍Which is your favourite part to write: the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

The end for sure. I have a habit of writing epic, emotionally charged endings in all my books. When I wrote the ending for Kill or Cure Oblivion, the third book in the trilogy, I cried my eyes out. Not just a little tear or two, no, this was full-blown ugly crying. It was not pretty! It was so emotionally draining, I felt utterly heartbroken. But it had to be perfect and I wanted to capture those emotions on the page. At this point in the story, the characters had been through hell, so the ending had to be…big. I wanted an ending that no one would see coming and would leave my readers with a gut-wrenching hole in their hearts. It sounds kind of sadistic when I put it like that, but it’s true! As a reader myself, I love that feeling when you finish a series and think to yourself… what do I do now? How is this over? What the hell am I going to do? Hopefully I have achieved that.

I can confirm you achieved that with Kill or Cure. That…that ending?! 😭🙌🏻💛Nothing like making your readers suffer!! (With love I’m sure 😌) Alright, last and very important question! Was any chocolate harmed in the making of this novel? 😉

So much chocolate. Honestly, it was a massacre.

The chocolate died for a worthy cause though. 😪😂 Thank you so  so much for chatting with me today, Pixie!! It was a pleasure to have you and have a peek into your writing process!

Enter the rafflecopter below to win a paperback copy of KILL OR CURE. Open internationally! (And make sure to grab a copy of the ebook which is on sale for 99c during the tour!)

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MTMC TOURS Schedule

February 8 – Paperfury
February 9 – The Book View
February `10 – Melancholic Blithe
February 11 – The Reader and the Chef
February 12 – Books, Tea, Healthy Me
February 13 – L.M. Durand’s Little Book Corner
February 14 – Books on the Bookshelf
February 15 – Sprinkled With Words
February 16 – Yours A-fiction-ately
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