Heal The Sick, Raise The Dead

by Jacob Prytherch

With the choice between the nightmare known and the nightmare unknown, it is the pull of the journey that drives Guy onwards, surrounded by a strange demonic family: the giant of aggression, the hideous shrinking man and the silent child. Together they travel from their lonely island home into a land of rain and blood, where the last remnants of humanity desperately hold on to the spark of life against a growing flood of the undead, and where either sanity or truth will finally be unravelled.

Genres: Horror, Zombies

262 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Jacob Prytherch has been making up stories since he was a child, even when he should have been paying attention in school. His influences include Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman. His first novel The Binary Man, published in 2012, has since gone on to be the #1 cyberpunk bestseller on amazon.co.uk on two occasions. He currently lives in Birmingham with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

[Mary Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am going to preface this by saying, I am not a fan of the zombie genre. I can appreciate a good show like "The Walking Dead," but that doesn't meant I will go out of my way to watch it. It's just too gory for me, no matter how well done the story is. In fact, the better the story, the more freaked out I get. In the case of "Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead," I read the sample and simply must have just forgot that I don't do gory zombie novels. Because the night after I read this book, I had a nightmare. Straight up woke up in a cold sweat with visions of zombies dragging their way after me dancing in my head. Yikes. Well done Jacob Prytherch, well done.

Prytherch takes us into the head of the mysterious "Guy" a castaway on a remote island somewhere up the northeast American coastline, probably Maine. Guy has amnesia, he doesn't remember who he is or where he comes from. He is joined by three others, the strong and quick-tempered Marcus, the cowardly and bone thin Cato, and the sweet and silent child Perdita. Together they make a family, albeit a creepy and dysfunctional one. As rotting corpses drift onto shore, Guy becomes more restless, anxious to know what is happening elsewhere, and to find out if there are more people out there. He gathers his small family onto a rowboat, and together they go out to face the unknown.

What follows is a journey filled with terror, psychosis, fear, confusion, helplessness, and of course, zombies. Lots of zombies. Many zombies. Maggot filled eyeball-less zombies. Gray rotting flesh dripping zombies. Moaning and groaning zombies. Limbless, but still crawling zombies. Zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.

As we journey along with Guy, and he slowly realizes who he is, we begin to realize things are not as they originally seemed. The author cleverly messes with the reader's head, and although the ending leaves something to be desired, Heal the Sick is a well done, well crafted piece of work.

I would definitely recommend this book to horror fans, especially zombie fans.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget everything you think you know about zombie books... this one will blow your mind.

This is the second full length novel by Jacob Prytherch. His previous work, The Binary Man, was a sci-fi adventure which was clever and imaginative but a tad on the confusing side for my uneducated brain. (I had never delved into this genre before.) With this in mind I was excited but little bit reluctant to start his new book, but I needn't have worried. Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead is a work of genius. I absolutely loved every page and could not put it down. The Binary Man took me 3 weeks to read, this book took me all of a day.

The story follows Guy on a journey through the unknown with a group of strange and sinister companions: Marcus the 'giant of aggression', Cato the 'hideous shrinking man' and Perdita the 'silent child'. The world has been overrun by a terrible plague and Guy must battle the demons inside the mind as well as those encountered on the road.

I won't give any of the story away but YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK.

[Pedro Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book Jake Prytherch should win the Plot Twist's Plot Twist's Plot Twist Master Award. The story is amazing, very dark and with some hardcore but readable and maybe "elegant" gore. Corpses everywhere, complex (VERY complex) characters with an unpredictable development along with the argument and the well known process of introspection and self realization that the characters written by Jacob tend to have. As always with his books, Jacob maintains the reader absolutely intrigued on how the story will continue in each chapter. I totally recommend this book to any terror/psychological thrillers lover.

[Jule Mcalpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Jacob Prytherch’s The Binary Man, I gave the zombie book a go. I am glad I did. I’m no big fan of zombies – they’re gross – but Prytherch’s story was incredibly good. He starts with Guy who has amnesia and like the game, this book will scare the crap out of you. It’s a jouney for Guy to find out who he is and through it all there are a lot of zombies. Zombies full of gore and leaking guts. Oh it is so gross. But the story is so good you forget until you go to sleep and then wake up cold with the sweat of fear and nightmares. Thanks Prytherch. Thanks for that.

[Helen Savin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty gripping! Not just gore or horror - intelligent too. Well worth the read to get you to the surprising last couple of morality-challenging chapters... doesn't disappoint!