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Deadtown, the first book in my new urban fantasy series, hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago. The series features Vicky Vaughn, a shapeshifter of the Welsh Cerddorion race who exterminates other people's personal demons for a living. Because it's a brand-new series, I thought I'd start here by introducing Vicky's world.

Three years ago Boston's paranormals were just beginning to come forward and lobby for human acceptance, led by activist werewolf lawyer Alexander Kane. When a plague tore through downtown Boston, infecting and killing every human in its path, the paranormal community stepped in to help. Paranormals were immune to the virus, so they gathered up the dead and enforced the quarantine zone. But then the plague victims began to rise.

Immediately, the walls that had been erected to keep curious humans out of the quarantine zone became barriers to keep the zombies in. Understandable, right? The virus had already mutated into something harmless, but no one knew that at the time. The plague victims might still be contagious. And they were different, frighteningly so. (Three days of decaying will do that to a person.) The newly risen zombies could think and talk, but they had spongy, greenish-gray skin and the whites of their eyes glowed blood red. They couldn't tolerate sunlight. Something happened to their muscles between death and reanimation that made them incredibly strong. And they were subject to seemingly insatiable hunger--a hunger that intensified to a frenzy whenever a zombie caught a whiff of human blood. The quarantine zone became a ghetto, a place where all paranormals were required by law to live. Deadtown.

In building my fantasy world, I spent a lot of time thinking about how society would react to the sudden and indisputable emergence of paranormal beings in their midst. Kane's activist group was one thing--it could easily be dismissed as a bunch of crackpots. (Can you imagine? "Hi, I'm a werewolf. No, really. Prove it? Believe me, you wouldn't want to be around if I did." I mean, how fast would you end that conversation?) But the rising of the zombies couldn't be ignored. Boston had to adjust--and adjust fast.

When the plague victims rose from the dead, it seemed to me that people's first reaction would be relief, even jubilation. A large-scale tragedy had been reversed, friends and loved ones snatched back from the grave. But the joy would be tempered by caution. Surely this repulsive creature couldn't really be Mom or Dad or that nice lady from next door or the kids' soccer coach. Could a human end up looking like a zombie if the newly risen got too close? And were those really werewolves and vampires and other ... monsters ... working in the quarantine zone? And so caution turned to fear. And from fear arose the desire to control.

At the time the events of Deadtown take place, the former quarantine zone is surrounded by electrified fencing. There are checkpoints into human-controlled Boston and into Deadtown itself; the block in between is a no-man's-land called the New Combat Zone, lined with rough bars where adventure-seeking humans mingle with the monsters. All paranormals are required to carry identification cards, and zombies can't leave Deadtown unless they're accompanied by someone who has a permit to take them out. Humans have created Deadtown in an attempt to keep the monsters at bay. And Kane's focus has switched from getting humans to acknowledge the monsters to fighting for paranormal rights.

People have always had a tendency to contain what they fear and label it as "Other." Deadtown takes you behind the wall and into the world of those Others.

Next time, I'll tell you more about Deadtown's demon-slaying resident, Vicky Vaughn: who she is, the history of her race, and why she's holding that awesome flaming sword on Deadtown's cover.