Nod

Nod by Adrian Barnes

Nod by Adrian Barnes

Review:
Full marks for originality. Nod is a one person’s account of what happens when everybody, apart from himself and a bunch of kids, fails to be able to sleep. Well, nothing good. Maybe I would have liked the book better if it was another person’s account? I don’t know. Not that I disliked it. If I would give away stars on Amazon, I would have given a generous 4 and 3 of those would have been for the collective insomnia idea. Love the cover though!

The Remaining

The Remaining by D J Molles review

The Remaining 
by D. J. Molles.

The Remaining is the first book in the bestselling series and it is not bad at all! It helps if you are interested in weapons though. Guns are described with so much obsessive detail, one starts to wonder a little… Nevertheless, the loneliness of the main man Lee, a soldier under orders to wait underground in a bunker, is truly palpable and adds to the excitement before mayhem starts. And he has a dog – for me always a plus in any book!

It has 131 (and rising) 5-star reviews on Amazon – nobody has that many friends who fake reviews (recently I started to wonder about that last statement…?). So a popular book with an interesting beginning.

Surviving The Evacuation

Surviving the Evacuation

Surviving The Evacuation Book 1: London: Volume 1 by Frank Tayell

Review:
This was a real find. It was dirt cheap (these days it is free) on the old kindle and I honestly did not have high hopes after wading through some awful start-of-a-zombie-series giveaways before. But hey it started off like Rear Window by Hitchcock with a bloke called Bill Wright, stuck in his flat with a broken leg, reduced to just watching as the zombie outbreak happens. He seems to be so ordinary, a fairly decent chap, that you wouldn’t give him 5 minutes ‘out there’. But, of course, supplies are running low and he has to go…

The quality of writing is ace and I gobbled Book 2 and 3 down as well. One of us (Frank Tayell or me?) lost the plot somewhere in book 3 and the story line just became too abstruse for my liking. My guess is that the pressure to publish the next volume got in the way of clear thinking.

I understand that the Surviving the Evacuation Series is currently at volume 7 and perhaps one day I am ready to find out what happened? But for now, I am just content with recommending volume 1 and 2 wholeheartedly.

Red Hill by Jamie McGuire


Red Hill by Jamie McGuire

Red Hill by Jamie McGuire

Review
You know how in almost every zombie novel there is always a destination of promise – here it is what it says on the tin: Red Hill. It is from the school of: ‘a zombie outbreak is the best thing that could have happened’ to its protagonists. It brings out the best in them and they find love on the way. And while it is somewhat predictable at times, Jamie McGuire is an accomplished writer who knows her craft – just as you would expect from a New York Times Bestselling Author. Surprisingly it is not part one of a series. I liked it!

Devoured

Devoured (The Hunger Book 1) by Jason Brant

Devoured (The Hunger Book 1) by Jason Brand

I couldn’t really warm to Lance, the self-pitying anti-hero, with his endlessly hurting feet coming into his own once Pittsburgh is swarming with Zombies-like creatures. Somehow he survives so he can lust after Cass (don’t call me Cassie), the punky, extra fit, double axe sword swinging blonde who saves him around halfway into the book.

If you are really poor and young enough so you don’t mind wasting your time – go for it. It’s free, plods along speedily enough and is not without humour. Not as funny as the author likes to thinks it is, but hey, life is full of flat jokes… On the plus side are the settings which were described so effortlessly that I can still see them in my mind – from hospital to alleyway, restaurant, drugs-den etc.… And the cover is great too!