The Bite

Sub Sami #1

by Angela Horn

Samantha Adkins has spent the last year struggling to survive in a world overrun with zombies. With her father and a small band of survivors, she kept one step ahead of danger.

Until the day Sami is bitten.

Soon the group moves on, leaving Sami's father Evan to watch his child die of the infection. Yet Sami miraculously recovers, only to realize she is no longer human and must learn to control the new hunger inside her.

Back on the road, Sami and Evan are pushed off course and into an area of the country dubbed the badlands. In a world infested with zombies, Sami and her father quickly discover the walking dead aren't the only monsters rising.

Genres: Zombies, Science Fiction, Horror

221 pages, ebook

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Note: I publish New Adult romance novels as Bijou Hunter and Christian romantic fantasy as Dakota Shepherd.

I've heard these profiles can be used to mock writers on certain craptactular sites. Better put my best face forward then.

I'm a saint. No really.

I read to the blind, feed the hungry, buy wigs for bald people – you know, real heartwarming shit. I never drink, drive too fast, or fart. I really am a saint.

Try not to be jealous. For some people, like me, sainthood simply comes naturally. It’s not something that can be taught either. Just be happy with yourself, even if you suffer from minor infractions.

Say you’re a public farter. Or you smoked pot that one time because your friend dared you. Or when in a hurry, you speed a little too much and occasionally run over cats. Or maybe for fun, you’ve been known to steal old ladies’ walkers then run away laughing. Embrace your flaws. After all, no one can be perfect like me.

Oh, and along with my saintly works, I write books. Urban fantasy, open roads fantasy, zombie fantasy (as compared to realistic zombie), and young adult fantasy. See the common denominator there?

Of course you do, you public farting, pot smoking, cat killing, old lady tormenting sons of bitches!

Find me at the following:
Indie Angie
Where Zombies Come To Read
BBA Whisperer
La La in Indieland
Facebook
Amazon Author Page

Reviews

[Genie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start off by saying that this book was AWESOME!! I entered the contest to win The Bite but after reading a sample I was hooked and had to read the rest. Samantha (Sub Sami) was pretty tough & strong minded about most situations (thank goodness). The relationship between her and her father was deep & I loved that he was willing to do anything to save her.

"It always seemed weird that God only used one part of our bodies to talk to us, but the devil got two? Seemed rigged in the devil's favor."

Loved the voice of Sami:) The world that Angela Horn created was full of danger as zombies were not the only thing to be worried about maybe not even the most scary. Bellamy was one of my all time favorite people in this crazy-zombie world.

"They killed Pestilence, they killed Famine. They killed War. But they did not kill Death."
Bellamy is the chick I need on my team when the world goes to shit so I'm calling dibs on her now, lol.

Now the only thing that prevented me from adding The Bite to my "Favorite" shelf was Leo. I liked him well enough except sometimes he seemed a bit.... Young, even though he was older than Sami. The whole hicky thing had me rolling my eyes at the immaturity of it. Other than that hats off to Ms. Horn for a fabolous book.

[Randy Harmelink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find this to be a difficult book to rate. There were many aspects that I really liked, but there were also some big departures from your typical zombie apocalypse story that I didn't care for at all. Even now, having finished the book, I'm still wondering what the heck was going on in those parts of the book.

The main character, Sami, is well developed, as are the other main characters around her. Most other characters were just names in the background. However, I can't say I was a big fan of many of the action scenes. For several, I had to go back and read them again to confirm what had actually happened in the scene, because some outcomes felt ambiguous the first time through.

What finally made me decide on a 3 instead of a 4 is that even though I see the book labeled as #1, I didn't immediately go out to see if a #2 was available.

[Elly Helcl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I am in a group on Goodreads with the author, I heard she was an author, decided to check out her stuff, and was interested in the book.

First off, let me clarify something. I am a die hard zombie fan. Period. I. Love. Zombies. So, this book was right up my alley =)

I liked that Sam was just your average teen struggling with very normal teenage issues. I enjoyed the fact that the author didn't try to write her as a perfect character. Right away in the book she makes, what should have been fatal, an error that costs her. Not too much further along, she is desperate enough for food that she is willing to give her virginity to a stranger for food...that is called, realism.

Personally, I loved Sam as a character from the word go. She was very human and made incredibly normal human errors. All the while, she struggled to stay alive in a world gone mad.

So, why the four star rating instead of five if I loved this book so much? The story starts with Sam being bitten. There is no back story to tell us how this zombie apocalypse came about, no real reasoning on how she got to where she was. One of my favorite parts of zombie stories is reading about hot the characters reacted as they tried to figure out what the heck was going on. It isn't everyday that someone feasts on another person in the streets. The author completely skipped that part, much to my disappointment.

Anyone looking for a fun zombie novel should check this one out! Just don't be surprised when there isn't a whole ton of horror and gore. This is really a nice YA zombie novel, one that I could let my thirteen year old read. Sigh...but I have to wonder, is there a book two of the bite in the making? If so, I WILL be buying it.

[M. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros: Good concept for a storyline - well edited & formatted.

Cons: Lacking in gore & horror. Storyline was disconnected with too many flashbacks in the middle of scenes that interrupted the flow. Frequent-use words; enclave, "Daddy," and a few others that got irritating.

I would recommend this to a rather young crowd IF it weren't for some descriptive sex acts. A quick & easy read. Don't expect traditional zombie horror, but rather a very mild version. Overall it was so-so.

Would I read the next, if there is one? Probably not. It was a bit too scattered for me and a bit too "young" (I'm actually a YA fan if they are solid) and honestly with it being advert'ed as a zombie horror I expected just that. Now, were the author to rewrite it, I might give it another try. It could easily be polished up and lengthened.

[Lynxie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seem to be on a bit of a Zombie-a-thon lately, and this was a good thing for Angela Horn and her book, The Bite, because I was really in the mood for a good zombie book.

I will come clean though, when I read the title, the full title, I was thinking that it was actually about something kinky. I mean... c'mon. The Bite (Sub Sami #1) doesn't that sound like it'd be about some hunky Dom strapping down a helpless little sub and having his way with her?!

No?

Perhaps it's just me!?

Anyway, I was mistaking, obviously, because this book is about zombies and the end of the world as we knew it and adding kink in there is kinda icky. But if that's your bag, I'm sure there's someone out there writing about it... hrm, perhaps I should?!

Moving on... Sami has been surviving in this world of zombies for a year and travelling with her father and a group of people she grew up with. This was ok, except that she kept calling her father 'Daddy' and that instantly annoyed me. She was not five years old, she was an adult practically. So the use of Daddy made me think of some inappropriate Daddy/Daughter kink... wrong again!

The story was actually quite unique, there were zombies, vampire types and even *I think* werewolves... I say I think, because I was completely confused by the scene with the white dog and the subsequent scene later with the explaination. Also... what was with the lack of reaction? It was strange.

I liked crazy Bellamy/Death/Rue/Anastasia, even if she was kind of crazy. I liked the dynamic she brought to the group. She livened things up in an otherwise serious situation.

When Sami was taken into the enclave thing and all that fun stuff happened, I admit, I was thinking - right here we go, this should be interesting. The hinted at reality of that situation was sooooo much more exciting than what actually happened. Way to tease us.

I must admit, I think because I went in expecting an adult novel, I was a bit miffed that this was a Young Adult one. I wanted the adult levels of sex, gore and horror. These were mostly missing. There were no graphic scenes, where graphic scenes occured in the book, they were glossed over, someone conveniently blacked out or got out some way.

Because of this, I felt a little jipped. This could be a totally awesome adult horror zombie story, but by dragging it down into the YA realm meant missing out on the freaky shit. My expectations (no matter how wrong to begin with) were vastly different from the reality of The Bite.

It is a passable YA zombie read, but for hard-core fans of horror and gore you will likely come out of this feeling underwhelmed.

I'd love to see Angela release an adult version of this book! BRING IT ON!

EDITED TO ADD: What is with the cover? Does it look like a zombie book with a cover like that?!

[Krys · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I sit here staring at my screen, two different reviews are trying to come out.. both for the same book. One for the novel as a whole and one specifically for the "paranormal"/"zombie" aspect of this novel. Neither one is bad per-say, but one is probably a little better than the other.

On the whole, I think this was one of the better "indie" novels that I've read. The characters were well developed, and didn't fall into any particular "molds". The story telling was smooth, and detailed enough that you could picture the people and their world as you went through it with them. There were even a couple of scenes dedicated to the "other side" of humanity that is rarely touched on in these types of books.. you know.. the scenes where other humans are just as bad as the monsters they are hiding from.

I loved the scenes between Sami and her father. You get a real sense of how deep their bond is, and you know without a doubt that they would do anything to ensure the other was safe. Even with that bond and knowing they would always put each other first, they still opened their ranks up to "new" people after being separated from their initial group, trying to save them even when the odds were stacked against them. All of the characters seemed to be well fleshed out, even if Leo did seem to be written as though he were younger than Sami and not older.

Now on to the "other" aspect of this book. I'm not really sure if I should be calling it the "zombie" aspect as there are those, or the "paranormal" aspect as there was some of that too, but I found that once the author went away from just zombies and started adding other "monsters" that the book became very confusing and it took away from the overall book instead of adding to it. Some of the characters were confusing too, such as Bellamy, who called herself Death. Things that she could do, and things that happened to her, while some were awesome, did not make any sense and left me feeling like the author really didn't know where she was going with it all.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and if zombies are your thing, then you should enjoy it as well!

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect, having never read a zombie book before. I only have one word... AWESOME! I loved Sami, a tough but still vulnerable girl. I must say, I think Bellamy was my favorite! Mustached Zombies! I chuckled a little every time.
This book was an extremely fast read. I couldn't put it down! Well done!

[Charmer (+ Vibes Only) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sami gets bitten by a Zombie and her whole world changes. I enjoyed this read; it's the first Zombie book I've read by a woman. It scared me some, so I liked it. Devil's Wake was written by a man and a woman, but whatever. I gotta see what else this Angela Horn has written.

[Hmr28]

I'd like to read this book but it is not available for the nook from BN.

[Coyora Dokusho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much going on, brain hurts!!!

but still want sequel, give me sequel!!!