New Kids On The Block is a year-long series on Pop! Goes The Reader meant to welcome and celebrate new voices and debut authors in the literary community.
Are you a debut author whose book is being published in 2018? It’s not too late to sign-up! If you want to participate in New Kids On The Block this year, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! You can send a tweet or DM on Twitter to @Pop_Reader or email me at Jen@PopGoesTheReader.com. I would love to collaborate with you!
About Emma Berquist
Emma Berquist grew up in Austin, Texas and sunburns easily. She currently lives in New Zealand and avoids the beach. Devils Unto Dust is her first novel.
Five Interesting Facts I Learned While Doing Book Research That I Shall Now Impart To You
1. The first person to ever survive rabies without the vaccine was a fifteen-year-old girl in Wisconsin who was bitten by a bat in 2004. Doctors put her into a drug-induced coma so they could regulate her breathing and swallowing while her immune system attacked the virus. The girl recovered and the treatment is now called the “Milwaukee protocol,” although of the 25 times it’s been used since, only 4 other people have survived. Bottom line: if you think you might have rabies, get the vaccine ASAP.
2. Variolation was the first method used to immunize people against smallpox. Doctors would take smallpox scabs, dry them and grind them into a powder, then introduce them to a patient’s skin through a small scratch. Yes, history is disgusting.
3. Ulysses S. Grant smoked around 20 cigars a day and got kicked out of the army for drinking too much because he was bored and depressed. (Historical figures! They’re just like us!) He also said one of the happiest days of his life was the day he left the presidency.
4. Thanks to Hollywood, when many people think “cowboy” they picture someone like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. In reality, the old west was a lot more diverse than the movies make it out to be. By the late 19th century, roughly one in three cowboys was Mexican, as many as 20% were black, and about 20,000 Chinese immigrants were instrumental in constructing the railroads.
5. John Wayne’s real name is Marion Robert Morrison. I just think it’s important people know this.
Title Devils Unto Dust
Author Emma Berquist
Pages 496 Pages
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Genre Western, Horror
Publication Date April 10th 2018 by Greenwillow
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon.com ● Chapters ● The Book Depository
Keep together. Keep your eyes open. Keep your wits about you.
The desert is unkind in the best of times. And the decade since the Civil War has been anything but the best of times for Daisy Wilcox — call her Willie — and her family. This tense, heart-pounding alternate history about a young woman fighting to survive the unthinkable will keep fans of Westworld and The Walking Dead reading late into the night.
A horrifying sickness has spread across the West Texas desert. Infected people — shakes — attack the living, and the surviving towns are only as safe as their perimeter walls are strong. The state is all but quarantined from the rest of the country. Glory, Texas, is a near ghost town. Still, seventeen-year-old Willie has managed to keep her siblings safe, even after the sickness took their mother. But then her good-for-nothing father steals a fortune from one of the most merciless shake hunters in town, and Willie is left on the hook for his debt. With two young hunters as guides, Willie sets out across the desert to find her father. And the desert holds more dangers than just shakes.
