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Sheila: Baby’s First Zombie Apocalypse
Third Floor, Apartment 305.
Down the hall, second bedroom.
Her name is Sheila.
No one is left. City streets are abandoned and only the monsters walk free, ravenous and searching for human flesh. Wendell Jenkins walks alone, an ordinary man driven by a dark mission, one he knows will likely end his life.
But the last request of a dead woman concerned for the welfare of her child leads him to a wrecked slum with a dead man in the living room and a live baby in a crib. Wendell will have to use all of his wits to keep her alive. Because the dead are hungry, and they will not rest until they have her.
Will man and baby survive their wild ride through this zombie apocalypse?
Scroll up and click the buy button now!
Down the hall, second bedroom.
Her name is Sheila.
No one is left. City streets are abandoned and only the monsters walk free, ravenous and searching for human flesh. Wendell Jenkins walks alone, an ordinary man driven by a dark mission, one he knows will likely end his life.
But the last request of a dead woman concerned for the welfare of her child leads him to a wrecked slum with a dead man in the living room and a live baby in a crib. Wendell will have to use all of his wits to keep her alive. Because the dead are hungry, and they will not rest until they have her.
Will man and baby survive their wild ride through this zombie apocalypse?
Scroll up and click the buy button now!
318 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 19, 2014
1 person is currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Brian Malbon
1 book9 followersBorn in Ontario, Canada, Brian Malbon has been all across Canada as a professional driver – from bus to truck to heavy mining equipment. He is a former volunteer firefighter, video editor and film student (with a single credit on imdb.com), a husband and a father of two wonderful little girls. Brian has always had a passion for writing and creating new worlds, and a morbid fascination with horror movies. His particular terror of zombies coupled with his newfound worry for his baby daughter led to the creation of Sheila, his first novel. Brian lives in Northern Alberta with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 6, 2015
Whenever I approach a story that’s written in a popular genre I always worry that it might be just a rehash of other stories, bringing nothing original or new to the table. This was my worry upon picking up Sheila, but I was happy to find that I had little to fear. Brian Malbon doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel here, but he does give us a tight, and taut, little story about a handful of survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to navigate their way through the streets of Toronto to safety on Ward's Island on the southern edge of the city. Sometimes humorous, often tense and horrifying, the story keeps the reader on edge, and offers a few surprising turns. And what better to way to increase tension in any such story than to place a helpless baby in harm’s way?
Malbon wastes no time before dropping us into the middle of the action, and we are quickly drawn into the struggle for survival in a city that once held millions of living residents. By concentrating on just four or five characters Malbon allows the reader to get to know and care about each one of them, and we can’t help but worry about who is going to survive each day, and what witnessing all this horror is doing to them. This raises the story a notch above the kind of thriller where there is lots of action but the characters are all cardboard cut-outs.
As is often the case in apocalyptic tales, some of the most horrific scenes involve things that (living) humans do to each other once the thin veneer of civilization has been torn off. Some of them turn out to be worse monsters than the zombies. But there is just enough heroism and self-sacrifice displayed by the survivors to give the story a sense of hopefulness about humanity, even though we are left wondering what caused all this and whether, even in a safe-haven, there is much of a future for any of them.
Malbon wastes no time before dropping us into the middle of the action, and we are quickly drawn into the struggle for survival in a city that once held millions of living residents. By concentrating on just four or five characters Malbon allows the reader to get to know and care about each one of them, and we can’t help but worry about who is going to survive each day, and what witnessing all this horror is doing to them. This raises the story a notch above the kind of thriller where there is lots of action but the characters are all cardboard cut-outs.
As is often the case in apocalyptic tales, some of the most horrific scenes involve things that (living) humans do to each other once the thin veneer of civilization has been torn off. Some of them turn out to be worse monsters than the zombies. But there is just enough heroism and self-sacrifice displayed by the survivors to give the story a sense of hopefulness about humanity, even though we are left wondering what caused all this and whether, even in a safe-haven, there is much of a future for any of them.
August 1, 2015
**Reviewed @ The Reader's Hollow**
There's action, suspense and plenty of uncertainty. I thought for sure a few people were meant to die and others meant to make it. I wasn't always right, which makes it all the more intense.
I love that this is set in Toronto and that the Hydro back-up system is being put to good use. So, you can look forward to a few fun facts.
The gore and fight scenes were entertaining with a new rule being put to the zombie virus. Zombies have one good jump in them. Otherwise, they're somewhat sloth-like. However, because they're slow doesn't meant they won't overwhelm their victims in their sheer numbers.
I can honestly say that I don't know of any zombie apocalypse novels where people went out of their way to save a baby. Shelia is not even a year and alone when her mother, who'd been bitten, flung herself out the apartment window clutching a note that read: "Her name is Shelia." It was an intense bunch of scenes for me and I'm not a mother.
Wendell is one of the loneliest characters I've come across in the beginning. He battles with internal cowardice when he comes across a new quest, a reason to keep moving, which is saving Shelia.
Along the way Wendell runs into a rag-tag group of unique characters who can be such polar opposites of each other that they'd likely never have been friends outside of the apocalypse. Their dynamics and social structure was spellbinding to me, as a reader, who loves to learn about characters. The reasoning behind the zombie virus wasn't revealed but for this particular group, it didn't need to be.
CONCLUSION
Just when things get comfy, the author throws a wrench in the gears and turns the whole situation on its head (in a good way). It ended like an epic action movie and kept me reading for the amazingly unique individuals who found themselves to be both charismatic babysitters and zombie slayers in a short amount of time.
There's action, suspense and plenty of uncertainty. I thought for sure a few people were meant to die and others meant to make it. I wasn't always right, which makes it all the more intense.
I love that this is set in Toronto and that the Hydro back-up system is being put to good use. So, you can look forward to a few fun facts.
The gore and fight scenes were entertaining with a new rule being put to the zombie virus. Zombies have one good jump in them. Otherwise, they're somewhat sloth-like. However, because they're slow doesn't meant they won't overwhelm their victims in their sheer numbers.
I can honestly say that I don't know of any zombie apocalypse novels where people went out of their way to save a baby. Shelia is not even a year and alone when her mother, who'd been bitten, flung herself out the apartment window clutching a note that read: "Her name is Shelia." It was an intense bunch of scenes for me and I'm not a mother.
Wendell is one of the loneliest characters I've come across in the beginning. He battles with internal cowardice when he comes across a new quest, a reason to keep moving, which is saving Shelia.
Along the way Wendell runs into a rag-tag group of unique characters who can be such polar opposites of each other that they'd likely never have been friends outside of the apocalypse. Their dynamics and social structure was spellbinding to me, as a reader, who loves to learn about characters. The reasoning behind the zombie virus wasn't revealed but for this particular group, it didn't need to be.
CONCLUSION
Just when things get comfy, the author throws a wrench in the gears and turns the whole situation on its head (in a good way). It ended like an epic action movie and kept me reading for the amazingly unique individuals who found themselves to be both charismatic babysitters and zombie slayers in a short amount of time.
January 2, 2015
I enjoyed this book .
August 11, 2022
Owad’s Micro-Review #63
The title suggests a rip-roaring romp through a cityscape of the flesh-eating undead. Indeed, this novel features plenty of action, and the writing is fast and energetic (Malbon clearly loves this topic). The only problem: that’s about all there is—a lot of zombie smiting and running around, sometimes in far-fetched locations (who in their right mind would go down into Toronto’s underground PATH walkways when hordes of flesh-eaters own the city?). The title character doesn’t even show up until you’ve plowed through 20,000 words of violent survival. True, there are some entertaining scenes, and you don’t expect Shakespeare from a zombie novel that features a baby bottle on the cover, but it’s a shame that Malbon (who writes quite well) didn’t set his sights a little higher. Sept. 23, 2021
The title suggests a rip-roaring romp through a cityscape of the flesh-eating undead. Indeed, this novel features plenty of action, and the writing is fast and energetic (Malbon clearly loves this topic). The only problem: that’s about all there is—a lot of zombie smiting and running around, sometimes in far-fetched locations (who in their right mind would go down into Toronto’s underground PATH walkways when hordes of flesh-eaters own the city?). The title character doesn’t even show up until you’ve plowed through 20,000 words of violent survival. True, there are some entertaining scenes, and you don’t expect Shakespeare from a zombie novel that features a baby bottle on the cover, but it’s a shame that Malbon (who writes quite well) didn’t set his sights a little higher. Sept. 23, 2021
February 11, 2017
I honestly loved this book! I thought it was very well-written and kept a good pace throughout.
It was a sort of different take on zombies, with a lot of heartache and triumphs along the way.
Definitely some heart-stopping moments with baby Sheila and each of the other characters surprised me every time.
It was gritty and didn't shy away from the nasties that an apocalypse might bring and the impact that that had on each of the characters.
I really loved the last few chapters and literally couldn't put the book down. I eagerly await another book from this author because I would buy it in a heartbeat.
It was a sort of different take on zombies, with a lot of heartache and triumphs along the way.
Definitely some heart-stopping moments with baby Sheila and each of the other characters surprised me every time.
It was gritty and didn't shy away from the nasties that an apocalypse might bring and the impact that that had on each of the characters.
I really loved the last few chapters and literally couldn't put the book down. I eagerly await another book from this author because I would buy it in a heartbeat.
November 22, 2015
I loved this book! I've always been a huge zombie apocalypse fan, and this story was just a very well written account of what could happen when the apocalypse hits. I loved the angle the author chose to take, focusing on a man who'd lost his wife, and was all alone, coming across a baby who'd just lost her mother. It was very well written, and I would recommend it to anyone who's into zombies, and likes characters you wouldn't expect to make it in the apocalypse.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews