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The Reanimates #2
The Highway
Driven out of their home after the marauders took so much from the group, the survivors leave California to find safety in Idaho with the rest of Trent’s family. With only a last known address to shoot for, the survivors set off on a journey along highway 15.
In a zombie ravaged world where everything has changed, the group has only one hope, that they will not lose themselves in the race to find their next safe area. Highway 15 is their best chance to get to that illusive safety net, but that safety will not come without a cost.
How much would you be willing to pay for a chance to begin again?
In a zombie ravaged world where everything has changed, the group has only one hope, that they will not lose themselves in the race to find their next safe area. Highway 15 is their best chance to get to that illusive safety net, but that safety will not come without a cost.
How much would you be willing to pay for a chance to begin again?
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 16, 2013
6 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
J. Rudolph
4 books39 followersI am J. Rudolph, a 30 something California native who is a bit of a zombie junkie.
I was born in the late 70's, got married in 1996, got into nursing in 2001, a mom in 2002, and wrote my first full length novel in 2012.
My house has been taken over by my obsession over turtles. I have 2 pet turtles added into my family and they are graciously allowing us to live here too.
My debut novel is available on Amazon.com for the kindle and paperback version. I hope that you will enjoy reading Cali's adventures as much as I did writing them. The Reanimates Series is a bit of a roller coaster ride through the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a nurse.
I was born in the late 70's, got married in 1996, got into nursing in 2001, a mom in 2002, and wrote my first full length novel in 2012.
My house has been taken over by my obsession over turtles. I have 2 pet turtles added into my family and they are graciously allowing us to live here too.
My debut novel is available on Amazon.com for the kindle and paperback version. I hope that you will enjoy reading Cali's adventures as much as I did writing them. The Reanimates Series is a bit of a roller coaster ride through the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a nurse.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 22, 2013
I loved the first Reanimates book, and I enjoyed the second even more. I have to give a pat on the back to the author for writing a story about decent people trying to survive during the zombie apocalypse. J. Rudolph did a great job creating characters that you really want to thrive.
The first book leaves off with a group of survivors that are forced the leave their homes. The Highway picks up where the first book left off, with Cali and the gang fleeing for their lives. I don't want to give away any of the plot, but I'll just say that things get really exciting, with nail-biting action, lots of zombie slaying, and a creepy cult!!
The author knows a lot about survival techniques, and this book includes loads of information that will help you survive when the zombies invade (it's gonna happen!).I really loved the ending of The Highway, and it definitely left me wanting more. I can't wait for the third book to be published so I can find out what happens to Cali and the gang! Thanks J. Rudolph, for writing such an uplifting zombie book!
The first book leaves off with a group of survivors that are forced the leave their homes. The Highway picks up where the first book left off, with Cali and the gang fleeing for their lives. I don't want to give away any of the plot, but I'll just say that things get really exciting, with nail-biting action, lots of zombie slaying, and a creepy cult!!
The author knows a lot about survival techniques, and this book includes loads of information that will help you survive when the zombies invade (it's gonna happen!).I really loved the ending of The Highway, and it definitely left me wanting more. I can't wait for the third book to be published so I can find out what happens to Cali and the gang! Thanks J. Rudolph, for writing such an uplifting zombie book!
June 6, 2014
*SPOILER ALERT* If you have not yet read the first book in this series, you may wish to stop reading as this review may contain spoilers.
The Highway, book two in J. Rudolph's Reanimates series, begins on the road, immediately following the end of book one, The Complex. Registered nurse, Cali, has just abandoned their not-so-safe apartment building and have taken to the road. If you've read my review of the first book, you'll know that I was not a believer in their plans to head into Vegas. So, I was skeptical going into this book. Cali is still making poor decisions which makes it difficult to buy her in a leadership role at times. Her impulsiveness and propensity for making frivolous stops to do some shopping puts the group in danger. This is especially odd, since as a nurse, critical thinking skills should have been beaten into her.
Rudolph handled the road trip into Vegas well. And instead of staying put, she kept the characters on the road with the ultimate destination to be Trent's family in the Midwest. I like most of the cast, and we all know I'm a big fan of nurses, so it was fun to read the different clinical situations in which Nurse Cali's skills were put to use. Now let me qualify that. There are a few standout characters, but sometimes a person that intrigued me was killed off before I could become invested in them.
I got a real laugh after having read a quote about the Nigerian Prince email scam. Minutes before I got to this part of the book the prince emailed my spam folder and I thought wow, I can't believe people are still doing this. I wonder if anyone's dumb enough to respond.
People are going to pull their tricks any time they can, they always have. Hell, I'm still waiting on that pay out for helping that deposed king of Nigeria.
The group gets waylaid on their trek, taken in by a strict group of survivors. Brother Michael, you can probably guess the kind of person he is just by his name, has a dark side. He may be fooling those who drank the Kool-Aid, but Cali's group sees right through the facade. Or do they?There were a few small editing issues, mostly in the arena of missing words like "by" and "the", but as a whole, they were minimal and the edit was leaps and bounds better than many self-pubbed titles I've read.
Here's the not-so-good, I'm just going to put this out there, and I hate doing it, but I think this is something that every author should remain cognizant of when writing. Rudolph's writing style is clean and direct. Sometimes, though, this style has the ability to come off choppy with blunted sentences. This starts to become an issue not with the occasional occurrence, but when it's entire passages. Also, overall, there is a large amount of sentences that begin with pronouns for long strings of text. I, we, they... Again, this wouldn't stand out were they spread out a bit more.
While noticeable, the sentence structure did not deter me from enjoying the story. And I look forward to reading the third -and final- book, just released last month, The Escape.
One phrase in particular stood out and gave me pause, and I had to chuckle at it. "I almost shot a coat stand with a hat." Hmm. Why wouldn't you use a gun instead of the hat? (I'm still chuckling) I think this may have been more effectively worded to indicate the hat was on the coat stand, and not being used as a projectile. :)
The story moves along at a good pace and there are peaks and valleys of conflict throughout. Now, this is purely a personal preference, but in both the first and second books, the focus is less on the undead and more on internal and external conflicts among living factions. Both book's main struggle/climax revolves around the group needing to escape their confines (both self-inflicted and forced) and a fight with opposing factions of the living. I'd love to see the focus shift more in the direction of struggling with the zombies. Again, this is my personal opinion, and I know many people that prefer the human battle over zombie.
The Highway, book two in J. Rudolph's Reanimates series, begins on the road, immediately following the end of book one, The Complex. Registered nurse, Cali, has just abandoned their not-so-safe apartment building and have taken to the road. If you've read my review of the first book, you'll know that I was not a believer in their plans to head into Vegas. So, I was skeptical going into this book. Cali is still making poor decisions which makes it difficult to buy her in a leadership role at times. Her impulsiveness and propensity for making frivolous stops to do some shopping puts the group in danger. This is especially odd, since as a nurse, critical thinking skills should have been beaten into her.
Rudolph handled the road trip into Vegas well. And instead of staying put, she kept the characters on the road with the ultimate destination to be Trent's family in the Midwest. I like most of the cast, and we all know I'm a big fan of nurses, so it was fun to read the different clinical situations in which Nurse Cali's skills were put to use. Now let me qualify that. There are a few standout characters, but sometimes a person that intrigued me was killed off before I could become invested in them.
I got a real laugh after having read a quote about the Nigerian Prince email scam. Minutes before I got to this part of the book the prince emailed my spam folder and I thought wow, I can't believe people are still doing this. I wonder if anyone's dumb enough to respond.
People are going to pull their tricks any time they can, they always have. Hell, I'm still waiting on that pay out for helping that deposed king of Nigeria.
The group gets waylaid on their trek, taken in by a strict group of survivors. Brother Michael, you can probably guess the kind of person he is just by his name, has a dark side. He may be fooling those who drank the Kool-Aid, but Cali's group sees right through the facade. Or do they?There were a few small editing issues, mostly in the arena of missing words like "by" and "the", but as a whole, they were minimal and the edit was leaps and bounds better than many self-pubbed titles I've read.
Here's the not-so-good, I'm just going to put this out there, and I hate doing it, but I think this is something that every author should remain cognizant of when writing. Rudolph's writing style is clean and direct. Sometimes, though, this style has the ability to come off choppy with blunted sentences. This starts to become an issue not with the occasional occurrence, but when it's entire passages. Also, overall, there is a large amount of sentences that begin with pronouns for long strings of text. I, we, they... Again, this wouldn't stand out were they spread out a bit more.
While noticeable, the sentence structure did not deter me from enjoying the story. And I look forward to reading the third -and final- book, just released last month, The Escape.
One phrase in particular stood out and gave me pause, and I had to chuckle at it. "I almost shot a coat stand with a hat." Hmm. Why wouldn't you use a gun instead of the hat? (I'm still chuckling) I think this may have been more effectively worded to indicate the hat was on the coat stand, and not being used as a projectile. :)
The story moves along at a good pace and there are peaks and valleys of conflict throughout. Now, this is purely a personal preference, but in both the first and second books, the focus is less on the undead and more on internal and external conflicts among living factions. Both book's main struggle/climax revolves around the group needing to escape their confines (both self-inflicted and forced) and a fight with opposing factions of the living. I'd love to see the focus shift more in the direction of struggling with the zombies. Again, this is my personal opinion, and I know many people that prefer the human battle over zombie.
August 6, 2016
I loved this story and everything about it. It was very thorough, covering everything that we all secretly plan for (and some not so secretly) when the SHTF. It's like a wonderful how-to guide that covers a lot of potential issues you may have already considered and many others you likely haven't.
The character dynamics are so well written. I can't imagine that was easy with so many people involved but the author did a fantastic job of making you care about the well-being of each and every character. Of course there were some losses along the way. And I cried for most of them. The author just made you feel like you've known them all your life.
Grammar is a big issue for me, so I rate each book on a 1 - 10 scale (1 being the least amount of errors, 10 being, "wtf are they talking about?") I give this one a 2. Someone did a wonderful job editing and I thank them for taking the time to do it.
I seriously hope there is another story to come because I have not had enough of this one yet. I want more.
The character dynamics are so well written. I can't imagine that was easy with so many people involved but the author did a fantastic job of making you care about the well-being of each and every character. Of course there were some losses along the way. And I cried for most of them. The author just made you feel like you've known them all your life.
Grammar is a big issue for me, so I rate each book on a 1 - 10 scale (1 being the least amount of errors, 10 being, "wtf are they talking about?") I give this one a 2. Someone did a wonderful job editing and I thank them for taking the time to do it.
I seriously hope there is another story to come because I have not had enough of this one yet. I want more.
March 1, 2016
This second book of The Reanimates series picks up right where The Complex left off. After being forced out of the relative safety of the complex by a gang of unscrupulous humans the group finds themselves on the road. While on the road they witness the total chaos caused by the virus and decide to head to Idaho hopefully to reunite with Trent's family. Fighting the reanimate hordes, traffic blockages and resupplying they come across other survivors, some join them while others head out on their own path. I won't say anymore except you should really read this series if you enjoy a story of family, love, survival and zombies. The characters are so well defined that they feel like friends and you really care about what happens to them. Well done again J. Rudolph, I'm now digging into the third book of this series.
August 5, 2016
As far as the story concept goes, the second book was just as good as the first. Unfortunately, the editing was also just as bad. The formatting and grammar were so distracting that I am not sure if I will read the next book when it comes out.
September 10, 2016
Loved the characters and story! Hope next in series will be released soon!
May 28, 2014
I just finished the highway . I really enjoyed it . Now book 3 The Escape :)
April 21, 2015
Another quick read. I give it 4.5 stars.
November 6, 2015
This was a great series all them the people joining together making a home and trying to keep it together
November 14, 2015
Great follow-up
This story by Rudolph is not only well written, but engaging and emotional. It's refreshing to read a survival tale not populated by gods!
This story by Rudolph is not only well written, but engaging and emotional. It's refreshing to read a survival tale not populated by gods!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews