Hello riders and readers. Today I am starting our bookish Friday off with a New Release Tour for Melanie Abed and her book Zombie Zoo. Check out the details below and her exclusive guest post for this blog. Don't miss out. Grab your copy today. Happy reading everyone :).
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10 Things Readers Would Be Surprised to Know About Me
I’m sure that most people assume writers spend all their time hunched over keyboards, quietly brooding about their prose. And, okay — sometimes we all do that. But here are ten things about me that don't usually make it into the author bio.
1. I play Clue every single day. Usually on my iPad, but I also have three different Clue board games in my house. It's how I warm up my brain before I write. Puzzles are a way of life over here.
2. I've never lost a game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit (the original). Try me. Seriously. I once collected mint-condition Star Wars toys back in college when nobody else was doing it. By the time I stopped, I needed an entire extra closet just to store them.
3. I have a 96% success rate at solving murder mysteries in the first five minutes. Which means you would never, ever want to watch a whodunit with me. I'm sorry. I can't help it.
4. I read a little over 80 books a year. My TBR is basically a hydra. I cross one off and three grow back. I'm a mood reader, so I bounce between thrillers, sci-fi, humor, literary fiction — whatever the day calls for.
5. Life keeps handing me quiet, casual moments with people you'd never expect. The kind of thing that always sounds like name-dropping when you say it out loud, so I usually don't. But: I've had cheese and crackers with Queen Rania of Jordan—just her, me, and two lovely girls from her Seeds of Peace foundation, all of us peckish before a presentation. My first week in Los Angeles, I had pizza at Michael Jackson's house (he wasn't there—I met him later—but his parents, a brother, and two cousins were, and we hung out for hours). Sure, if you work in or around Hollywood you see and sometimes meet people a lot, but I’m not talking about that. None of my brushes with famous people have been the "oh hey" kind. They've all been improbable, personal, unusual, and completely by accident. Stuff like that just happens to me—a lot!
6. One year, I raised 153 monarch butterflies from egg to transformation. Every spring I'm astonished all over again by chrysalises hiding in places I didn't put them.
7. I spoke Swedish as a child, then studied French and Japanese. I'm half Scandinavian, half Italian — but for a long time I identified as half Japanese, because the Japanese culture was a massive part of my early life.
8. As a kid, I scaled drainpipes and the sides of buildings in Chicago. Just to see if I could. I was also secretly dreaming about becoming an archaeologist in Egypt. I journaled constantly, and years later I read those old journals and laughed out loud at what a younger me had noticed. Weird small things. Sharp observations. Good reminder never to underestimate kids.
9. My one real phobia is tsunamis. That's it. Everything else, I'll take my chances with.
10. I have a memory like an elephant and I'm obsessed with etymology. I can lose entire afternoons chasing a word to its roots. It's why wordplay sneaks into everything I write. Every character name in my series is built with intention through this process. I guess they're like little linguistic breadcrumbs, and readers who love word origins will find layers hiding in plain sight.
Bonus fact: popcorn is my favorite snack.
Second bonus fact: If you're the kind of reader who lives for the little treasures hiding inside a story—the tiny clues, the wordplay, the details most people miss—Zombie Zoo was built for you. And if you spot something clever? Send it to me. We're quietly collecting reader finds, questions, and even fan art for a corner of the website we're building. Come join us.
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Adventures in Tub (Felix & Ninja, Book 1)
Upper Middle Grade
Date Published: 09-15-2026
Publisher: Oculus Print
Two orphan loners. One supernatural plague. When wood-eating zombies
threaten their island, mismatched investigators Felix and Ninja must combine
science and instinct to save Spinachi-before they're next.
ZOMBIE ZOO is Book 1 in a five-book middle grade adventure series for readers
ages 8-13, blending paranormal mystery, zombies, unlikely friendship, and
STEAM-powered problem-solving.
When 13-year-old aspiring naturalist Felix Fizzystyxx discovers that
orphans at Wayward Amok Orphanage are transforming into wood-eating zombies,
his quiet tree-fort observations are no longer enough. Someone has
deliberately unleashed a strange plague on Tub's island town of Spinachi-and
they're still out there.
To find a cure, Felix must team up with Ninja, a shadow-dwelling orphan who
trusts her instincts and never backs down. Intense and razor-sharp, she
notices what others overlook and lives up to her name as the island's most
mysterious sleuth. With their eccentric mentor Doc Brunne compromised and the
town's water supply contaminated by a glowing bioluminescent substance, the
two mismatched investigators must combine scientific observation with sharp
intuition to stop the outbreak before their island home is devoured.
Set on the fictional island of Tub, this fast-paced, humorous adventure
naturally weaves in STEAM concepts-biology, chemistry, bioluminescence, water
systems, pattern recognition, and the scientific method-within an
age-appropriate supernatural mystery. Themes include unlikely friendship,
identity, trust across differences, courage, and finding your voice when
adults won't listen.
Featuring diverse protagonists, quirky humor, spooky-but-fun scares, and
strong female and male leads. ZOMBIE ZOO is ideal for reluctant readers and
fans of Max Brallier's The Last Kids on Earth, B.B. Alston's Amari and the
Night Brothers, and Goosebumps. Comprehensive educator resources-including
discussion guides, vocabulary lists, STEAM extension activities, and printable
maps-support classroom use, library programming, book clubs, and make this
title ideal for cross-curricular lessons bridging ELA, STEAM, and SEL.
About the Author
Melanie Abed is a behavioral expert turned story weaver. She believes
dragons are real but hiding, and finds thunderstorms equally delightful and
terrifying. A tea-loving bookworm, she champions young minds and writes to
help kids discover their superpowers are real.
Contact Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Pinterest
Instagram: @byMelanieAbed
Purchase Links
https://mybook.to/ZombieZoo
Amazon
B&N
Walmart
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