What do you think?
Rate this book
Reborn: Dead Man
Tanis Archer is facing a miserable twenty-fifth birthday. She's a part-time barista in her sixth year at Dallas Community College. Her life is going nowhere, fast.
Literally.
Because on her way to work, she loses control of her car and is killed in a horrific crash. That should have been the tragic end of her story. But days later, she wakes up on a cold morgue slab…and soon learns that miraculous resurrections have brutal side effects. For starters, there are people around her who look as if they are decomposing from the inside-out, victims of their rotting souls. Even worse, it's no illusion. What she is seeing is real, a shadowy part of the world where the bloody battle between good and evil is being fought every day by an ax-wielding "dead man" and his rag-tag army of supernatural freaks.
And she’s being asked to join him.
Obviously that's not how Tanis wants to spend her afterlife - she'd rather party with her new-found abilities - but an unimaginable horror is rising from the Black Sea, and she might just be the only person who can save humanity from an agonizing, never-ending nightmare…
Literally.
Because on her way to work, she loses control of her car and is killed in a horrific crash. That should have been the tragic end of her story. But days later, she wakes up on a cold morgue slab…and soon learns that miraculous resurrections have brutal side effects. For starters, there are people around her who look as if they are decomposing from the inside-out, victims of their rotting souls. Even worse, it's no illusion. What she is seeing is real, a shadowy part of the world where the bloody battle between good and evil is being fought every day by an ax-wielding "dead man" and his rag-tag army of supernatural freaks.
And she’s being asked to join him.
Obviously that's not how Tanis wants to spend her afterlife - she'd rather party with her new-found abilities - but an unimaginable horror is rising from the Black Sea, and she might just be the only person who can save humanity from an agonizing, never-ending nightmare…
Audible Audio
First published January 21, 2014
21 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
Kate Danley
55 books596 followersKate Danley began her writing career as an indie author in 2010. Since then, her books have been published by 47North, she spent five weeks on the USA Today bestseller list, and she has been honored with various awards, including the Garcia Award for Best Fiction Book of the Year (The Woodcutter), McDougall Previews Award for Best Fantasy Book of the Year (Queen Mab), Best of 2014 by Suspense Magazine (M&K Tracking), and the 2017 Utopia Award for Best Anthology of the Year (Once Upon A Kiss - "Galatea & Pygmalion"). Her play Building Madness won the prestigious Panowski Playwriting Award and her play Bureaucrazy was a semi-finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Her works have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Canada, and the UK. She has over 300+ film, television, and theatre credits to her name, and specializes in sketch, improv, and Shakespeare. She wrote sketch for a weekly show in Hollywood and has performed her original stand-up at various clubs in LA. She learned on-camera puppetry from the man who played Mr. Snuffleupagus and performed the head of a 20-foot dinosaur on an NBC pilot. She lost on Hollywood Squares.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 13, 2014
***Won in a GoodReads First Reads giveaway***
Written by various authors, I think this book suffered because of it. First and foremost, however, is the cover art. As another reviewer pointed out, the main character, Tanis Archer, is Greek and multiple references are made to her natural Greek appearance...olive skin, dark hair etc. So why is the girl on the cover a fake blond with very much not Greek facial features? She looks Anglo to me. Disappointing, really.
But because of multiple authors, as mentioned, this story reads a few different ways, and the styles are not seemless. It is disconcerting at times, which I do not think helps the story along...although the concept of time is very much thrown about in a willy nilly manner. Days, minutes, weeks are thrown about and it leaves the reader to assume and guess about how much time has passed since we last read this or that character.
This brings me to the good parts. I very much enjoyed the story of the Byantine ship. It began in a prologue many years ago: a ship sinks. It is raised from the ocean and things start to happen for the worse. If the whole story revolved around this boat and its characters, I think I would have enjoyed it more. It did not.
The actual story follows Tanis, who dies very quickly in the book only to be reborn. But nothing is really explained about why. Furthermore, she starts seeing things differently, seeing evil. Of course she attracts th attention of someone like her who runs a small group of freaks, who i am not sure are reborn or just born that way. They have special abilites...high temp hands, glowing skin, ivisibility. Again, never explained. But somehow Tanis falls right in league with them as they now have to fight some black box bad guys and save the world from the ship we have alreayd heard about.
If this review seems disjointed, it is because the novel is written in the same way. A lot is happening, and it comes off like the authors did not have a very good brainstorm session and they are secretly trying to steer the sotry to their own ends. And parts were good, but then a new chapter (possibly then a new author) and the flow would break down.
I wont go into how Tanis fights "zombies" with a clawed hammer (how does she a) inflict real dmaage and b) always get them with the claw and be able to pull it out without snagging), or how the man who finds her, Matt Cahill, is able to wield an ax as if it were a rapier or broadsword...i mean the cutting edge is only so big...
A lot left to be desired here, and I have no interest in continuing or finding answers to any questions posed in this review. Glad it was only 259 pages, but to be a better story it should probably have been at least 350...
Written by various authors, I think this book suffered because of it. First and foremost, however, is the cover art. As another reviewer pointed out, the main character, Tanis Archer, is Greek and multiple references are made to her natural Greek appearance...olive skin, dark hair etc. So why is the girl on the cover a fake blond with very much not Greek facial features? She looks Anglo to me. Disappointing, really.
But because of multiple authors, as mentioned, this story reads a few different ways, and the styles are not seemless. It is disconcerting at times, which I do not think helps the story along...although the concept of time is very much thrown about in a willy nilly manner. Days, minutes, weeks are thrown about and it leaves the reader to assume and guess about how much time has passed since we last read this or that character.
This brings me to the good parts. I very much enjoyed the story of the Byantine ship. It began in a prologue many years ago: a ship sinks. It is raised from the ocean and things start to happen for the worse. If the whole story revolved around this boat and its characters, I think I would have enjoyed it more. It did not.
The actual story follows Tanis, who dies very quickly in the book only to be reborn. But nothing is really explained about why. Furthermore, she starts seeing things differently, seeing evil. Of course she attracts th attention of someone like her who runs a small group of freaks, who i am not sure are reborn or just born that way. They have special abilites...high temp hands, glowing skin, ivisibility. Again, never explained. But somehow Tanis falls right in league with them as they now have to fight some black box bad guys and save the world from the ship we have alreayd heard about.
If this review seems disjointed, it is because the novel is written in the same way. A lot is happening, and it comes off like the authors did not have a very good brainstorm session and they are secretly trying to steer the sotry to their own ends. And parts were good, but then a new chapter (possibly then a new author) and the flow would break down.
I wont go into how Tanis fights "zombies" with a clawed hammer (how does she a) inflict real dmaage and b) always get them with the claw and be able to pull it out without snagging), or how the man who finds her, Matt Cahill, is able to wield an ax as if it were a rapier or broadsword...i mean the cutting edge is only so big...
A lot left to be desired here, and I have no interest in continuing or finding answers to any questions posed in this review. Glad it was only 259 pages, but to be a better story it should probably have been at least 350...
September 15, 2014
Tanis is having the worst birthday. Ever. She was fired from her barista job, the community college counselor said all her years of classes mean nothing, and her mother kicked her out for being a deadbeat. To make matters worse, on the way to meet up with friends for her birthday dinner, her new car malfunctions and she crashes and dies. A few days later, she wakes up in the morgue perfectly fine, and everyone thinks it was a big misunderstanding. Tanis tries to get her life on track, but she starts to see people decaying around her, and nobody else sees it. Is she crazy or is something else going on.
I instantly engaged in the mystery and supernatural elements of the book. I loved the idea of the slave ship and the spells and the fact everything was oh so mysteriously preserved. The fact that they threw in science, modern technology and magic into the plot was equally engaging. This is most definitely a horror novel, with a scary plot, horrifying monsters and boatloads of gore. This story was non-stop action, never a dull moment to calm down before something awful would strike. The one thing that I was not instantly sold on in the story was Tanis.
Tanis was a very hard character to like at the beginning of the book. She was selfish and impulse, rushing headlong into terrible situations just because she could. This is probably a terrible thing to say, but she kinda needed a swift kick and terror to point her in the right direction. And man did she grow up, but the things she had to experience were severe. Death, re-birth, mental breakdown, family drama, illicit affair, supernatural world, fighting, oh and the apocalypse. I was a little concerned about her "boyfriend" and how that worked ethically, but I got the biggest shock ever right along with Tanis. I mean seriously, shocking! She becomes an awesome character that I rooted for.
There were a ton of side characters that I enjoyed, especially Matt. He was the strong leader the freaks needed. I would have liked to learn more about the freaks and their powers, mainly what Tanis and Matt have in common as well.
There was so much going on to the story, I could not help but be engaged. I liked the story overall, and was amazed that so many authors could come together to write a cohesive book. I look forward to more adventures set in this world.
I received this book from the author and Goodreads in exchange for my honest review.
I instantly engaged in the mystery and supernatural elements of the book. I loved the idea of the slave ship and the spells and the fact everything was oh so mysteriously preserved. The fact that they threw in science, modern technology and magic into the plot was equally engaging. This is most definitely a horror novel, with a scary plot, horrifying monsters and boatloads of gore. This story was non-stop action, never a dull moment to calm down before something awful would strike. The one thing that I was not instantly sold on in the story was Tanis.
Tanis was a very hard character to like at the beginning of the book. She was selfish and impulse, rushing headlong into terrible situations just because she could. This is probably a terrible thing to say, but she kinda needed a swift kick and terror to point her in the right direction. And man did she grow up, but the things she had to experience were severe. Death, re-birth, mental breakdown, family drama, illicit affair, supernatural world, fighting, oh and the apocalypse. I was a little concerned about her "boyfriend" and how that worked ethically, but I got the biggest shock ever right along with Tanis. I mean seriously, shocking! She becomes an awesome character that I rooted for.
There were a ton of side characters that I enjoyed, especially Matt. He was the strong leader the freaks needed. I would have liked to learn more about the freaks and their powers, mainly what Tanis and Matt have in common as well.
There was so much going on to the story, I could not help but be engaged. I liked the story overall, and was amazed that so many authors could come together to write a cohesive book. I look forward to more adventures set in this world.
I received this book from the author and Goodreads in exchange for my honest review.
May 17, 2014
I started reading this book with some trepidation. I am not a fan of the zombie genre, and I must admit up front that I only read "Reborn" because one of its authors, Phoef Sutton, is a fellow graduate from my alma-mater (James Madison University) who made it big as a Hollywood writer (Cheers, Boston Legal, etc) and I wanted to brag that I was once in a class with him in college.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised. For along with the zombie action there was something for me too -- some real philosophy about evil and how it hides behind the fleshy masks of ordinary faces in ordinary people who pass themselves off (successfully) as just one of us. Tanis' mixed feelings about the morality of killing the enemy and whether you can separate the person from the evil in their soul was another plus.
Basically, this was a professionally written, interesting novel that kept my interest to the end. My only suggestion is that it really should be a graphic novel. I could just see the pictures practically drawing themselves, and know some artists who would love to help them along.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised. For along with the zombie action there was something for me too -- some real philosophy about evil and how it hides behind the fleshy masks of ordinary faces in ordinary people who pass themselves off (successfully) as just one of us. Tanis' mixed feelings about the morality of killing the enemy and whether you can separate the person from the evil in their soul was another plus.
Basically, this was a professionally written, interesting novel that kept my interest to the end. My only suggestion is that it really should be a graphic novel. I could just see the pictures practically drawing themselves, and know some artists who would love to help them along.
August 3, 2014
This book was interesting, but not in a bad way. Starts off slow but then gets crazy real quick. It's part of a series called The Dead Man. Which I've never read. You kind of need to read the series to know the back stories of the other characters. However, even though I've never read the other books it wasn't too difficult to read and you won't be completely lost. I would recommend reading the others in the series to help you get really into it. If I had read the other books I might've been more into it and the other characters besides the one introduced in this book. Even though I've never read this series I'm still curious about what happens after this book. To have someone wanting to know what happens next, even if they haven't read the other books in the series, I consider that an interesting book (in a good way).
February 14, 2015
It's quite irritating to lead up to "I was unarmed, on the ground, and my enemy was just about to kill me with his next blow" about five or more times during the book, and each and every time continue the scene with "his head suddenly left his body, and my friend was there, managing to save my life just in the nick of time". I mean...c'mon!
Other than that, I didn't find the plot particularly compelling, or even interesting. The mindlessness of "evil ones" was wearing to say the least...to sum it up, I didn't much enjoy this one, though it wasn't as dreadful as it might have been. Still, there were many foolish decisions made by characters, that just ruined the book for me.
Other than that, I didn't find the plot particularly compelling, or even interesting. The mindlessness of "evil ones" was wearing to say the least...to sum it up, I didn't much enjoy this one, though it wasn't as dreadful as it might have been. Still, there were many foolish decisions made by characters, that just ruined the book for me.
July 30, 2014
I received this book from First Reads on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. This was quite an exciting book to read, you have people coming back from the dead for the purpose of killing evildoers, you have an ancient shipwreck brought back up to the surface in order to fulfill a prophecy. Loved the story, it kept my interest from beginning to end!!
February 27, 2014
This was a cool story, although there were many spelling and grammatical errors.
July 27, 2014
unusual and interesting take on the zombie genre. I am starting from the beginning of the series after reading Reborn. Fun and fast read. Thanks Goodreads for my free copy!!!!
July 26, 2014
I received this copy as a Goodreads giveaway. I read it cover to cover in 3 days. I found it a unusual and interesting take on the zombie genre. I will be reading the entire series.
June 15, 2018
Considering that this was a Kindle Serial that was combined into a book with different authors writing the different parts the story and styles stayed fairly consistent through out. The new character and seeing old characters and plot lines from previous books was nice. There was also a little more advancement of the overall story of Matt and Mr. Dark. Only real problem is that I can't seem to find anything on when the next story will be or in what form it will show up.
July 3, 2023
Was a reboot really needed?
I have enjoyed The Dead Man for years. I have always described it was the novelization of a TV series script. It is like The Incredible Hulk. Each week Bixby would roll into a new town, he might make a friend, he would encounter a bad guy, the action would resolve, and he would hitch hike out of town.
This book was a reboot of the original series, adding some superfriends and a female Dead Man.
I hope they do not do it again.
I have enjoyed The Dead Man for years. I have always described it was the novelization of a TV series script. It is like The Incredible Hulk. Each week Bixby would roll into a new town, he might make a friend, he would encounter a bad guy, the action would resolve, and he would hitch hike out of town.
This book was a reboot of the original series, adding some superfriends and a female Dead Man.
I hope they do not do it again.
July 22, 2014
I received this copy as a goodreads giveaway.
3 1/2 stars
Positives: I really liked the storyline, it was well thought out with lots of action. The creepy factor throughout the book was really interesting, I enjoyed it very much!
Negatives: At times you could *really* tell it was a different author writing the parts, and it lead to some confusion and lack of cohesion when reading along. The cover picture shows a blonde woman, and its significantly noted throughout the book about her Greek heritage (it is after all one of the key factors in this book) and dark haired.. was bummed the illustrator didn't pick up on this.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. Thank you!
3 1/2 stars
Positives: I really liked the storyline, it was well thought out with lots of action. The creepy factor throughout the book was really interesting, I enjoyed it very much!
Negatives: At times you could *really* tell it was a different author writing the parts, and it lead to some confusion and lack of cohesion when reading along. The cover picture shows a blonde woman, and its significantly noted throughout the book about her Greek heritage (it is after all one of the key factors in this book) and dark haired.. was bummed the illustrator didn't pick up on this.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. Thank you!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews