The Catrina Chronicles: Year One — Michael Atkinson

It all started with Charles the assassin. If he hadn't tried and failed to murder Princess Catrina, she wouldn't have sought out his employer, Vladimir the Marauder. If she hadn't done that, she wouldn't have gotten killed and sent to Character Heaven, and she never would've learned that she was a story character and not a real person. And all her many adventures after that might never have happened. This book contains all those events and more, in a collection of the first episodes of the Catrina Chronicles. These stories explain just how Catrina came to be, how she first met her love interest Perry, and how she fought her first battle against her arch-nemesis, Susan, leader of Character Hell. There's also the first Zombie Penguin Apocalypse, Velociraptors in helicopters, Gaseous Girl, and even Santa Claus!