Burn The Dead: Quarantine

Burn the Dead #1

by Steven Jenkins

Robert Stephenson makes his living burning zombies – a job that pays the bills and plays tricks on the mind. Still, his life is routine until one day his infected wife, Anna, shows up in line for the incinerator, and Rob must cremate the love of his life.

In a race against the clock, he must find his four-year-old son Sammy, who is stranded in a newly quarantined zone, teeming with the walking dead, and crawling with the Necro-Morbus virus.

Does Rob have what it takes to fight the undead and put his broken family back together?

Or will he also end up in the incinerator – burning with the rest of the dead?

Genres: Horror, Zombies, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Apocalyptic, Science Fiction

282 pages, ebook

First published May 29, 2014

About the author

Born in the small Welsh town of Llanelli, Steven began writing stories at the age of eight. His inspiration came from his love for ‘80s horror movies, and novels by Stephen King and the late Richard Matheson.

During Steven’s teenage years, as well as being a black-belt kickboxer, he became a great lover of writing dark and twisted poems – six of which gained him publications with Poetry Now, Brownstone Books, and Strong Words.

Over the next few years, and after becoming a father and a husband, Steven's passion drove him towards writing short stories, gaining him further publication with Dark Moon Digest: an American horror magazine. His terrifying tales of the afterlife and zombies gained him positive reviews, particularly his story, Burning Ambition, which also came runner up in a Five-stop-story contest.

Finally, in 2013, after years of hard work (and countless rejection letters), Steven got his debut novel, Fourteen Days, published by Barking Rain Press.

Reviews

[Steven Jenkins]

If you don't love your own work, surely no one else will...

[Netanella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm really picky about my zombie books, because I read quite a lot of them. This one was quite astonishing in its unusual concept - a society where zombiism (my word) is a fairly common and even accepted occurrence - a medical infection with a 100% mortality rate, and classifications of workers to address the need. There are Cleaners who go in to an infected area, and well, they 'bag and tag' the infected, and then cart them off to a crematorium, where Burners dispose of the still wiggling undead in a giant furnace.

Rob is an everyman, a husband and daddy, a common blue collar worker whose job it is to burn the dead. Every day, though, he unzips the body bag to look at the face of the infected whom he is about to incinerate. From the story's beginning you know that Rob is different, and when one morning he unzips a body bag and gazes upon the undead face of his wife Anna, his world is turned upside down. His neighborhood has now become a quarantine zone and his young 4 year old son is lost somewhere inside. After being refused entry into the zone, Rob breaks in to his neighborhood to locate his son and discovers that the zombies have overwhelmed the Cleaners. Apparently, budget cuts and reduced staffing have lead to an ill prepared and ill equipped team. And Rob realizes very quickly that finding his young son is going to be tougher than he originally expected.

And the crazy next door neighbor with the hatchet ax doesn't help.

This is an amazing book, and one that I would highly recommend to readers of zombie books. Good times!

[chucklesthescot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rob is a normal man who loves his wife Anna and young son Sammy, who he doesn't see enough of. You see, Rob is the man at the morgue who burns the zombies when they are captured and restrained. He doesn't mind the work, but it means late finishes and early starts as a mini outbreak can occur at any time. But one day, Rob is shattered to see that Anna is one of the zombies. Where is Sammy? Is he alive? He can't help Anna now but he can save his son-if he is brave enough to break into the quarantine zone that his neighbourhood is in and brave the zombie hordes...

I really enjoyed this book. Finally we have a hero in a zombie book that I like and can relate to! Rob could be the guy next door to you. He likes his job, hates his boss, works too hard for too little money and loves his family. He's a good normal guy who is faced with trying to find his son in a cordoned off area teaming with zombies. He doesn't have a stack of weapons in his car. He's not the superfit guy with tactical awareness and a great plan. He's just a guy who gets tired and make mistakes and won't give up until he finds Sammy. The other characters in the book are fascinating. Janet's story was really well written and had me on the edge of my seat as I waited to see what happened. I also liked the plot with Rob's neighbour but I'm saying no more as I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The plot is very good. It's hard to be original in a zombie outbreak novel but I think the author did bring something different to it. It is not a full on end of the world outbreak. Society in this book has obviously survived zombie outbreaks in the past and has learned to deal with them. When an outbreak occurs, quarantine is set up and then cleaning teams are sent in to catch and restrain the zombies who are then sent to the morgue to be burned by Rob. However something has gone wrong and the cleaners have been attacked by the zombies as Rob discovers when he gets into the quarantine area.

Rob encounters zombies and a cleaner who tells him what has been going wrong, as well as his neighbours both alive and undead. The author manages to transport you there, to the safe streets around your home that have become a war zone and I found myself thinking about an outbreak in my local area and how I would get to my house. There are a lot of tense moments in the book as Rob encounters a lot of danger and grief. I thought it was all really well written and there were a few surprising twists as well.

I can't say there was anything I didn't like about it. Plot and characters were excellent, writing style was good, and it kept me wanting to turn the pages and rooting for Rob. I read an e-copy and went out and bought the paperback straight after. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series and I recommend this to all zombie fans.

[Brodie James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given the novel Burn the Dead by Steven Jenkins in exchange for an honest review.
Steven has a real knack for writing horror. While I love zombie books it troubles me that they are all alike in one way or another. Steven has done a wonderful job writing a truly unique zombie novel.

Rob is your everyday hard working man, struggling to put food on the table for his wife Anna and four year old son Sammy. While at work he unzips the body-bag of one of the nec's he is supposed to burn, only to find it's Anna and she is no longer the woman he loves she's a flesh eating monster. After burning her in the furnace he rushes home to find Sammy but can't make it through the barricade as his whole neighbourhood is quarantined. Rob will stop at nothing to find Sammy dead or alive, so he finds a way into the quarantine zone. Will he like what he finds? Are the dead the only thing he should be afraid of?

Steven has done a brilliant ob on this novel it is original in every way. I love Rob and his Determination to find Sammy. I also love the way every detail could be a clue, it is a well thought out novel and joins together perfectly. I give it 5 stars, you can find it at amazon for under $5.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

* This is a 3.5 star read.

First of all peoples, look at that cover! If that's not enough to give you the screaming heebie-jeebies, I don't know what is. It's the best zombie cover I've seen so far, truly exemplifying the malevolence of the turned.

This was a captivating and very different type of zombie novel in that there is no apocalypse - just outbreaks of a deadly virus that are quickly contained by the government and licensed "cleaners". The world still goes on as normal, albeit with some totally new forms of employment, and although there is real fear attached to the fact of zombies it's mainly pushed to the back of their minds.

But what happens when there's a breakout and the original containment fails? What if your very young child was caught in the infection zone, all by himself? And how can you really deal with the death of your spouse at the hands of an infection? Lots of questions that are admirably dealt with - you'll just have to read the book to find out the conclusion!

I have the following two books in the series on my Kindle (I'm getting a real zombie fix at the moment) and I look forward to reading about the virus from different viewpoints.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

I really got into the story. The writing is superb and it kept me hooked to the last page. I really enjoyed this book and I expect to read more books by Jenkins.

[Peter Last · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was exactly what I would expect of a typical zombie story which is too bad because it could have been so much more. The premise was unique and interesting and the character (the whole story focuses on just one) was complex and different. Then the story began and succumbed to every zombie stereotype ever. Below are a list of pros and cons to the book and why I gave it 2 stars (would have been 2.5 if that rating were possible)

Pros:
-As stated above the situation and character were unique. They seemed to be the setup for something great and then...
-This book never forgot what it was. It sets out to tell a small-scale, personal story and it does exactly that, never falling victim to the temptation of being too "epic"
-The scenery and situations in this book are realistic and something I could visualize and get into

Cons:
-Choppy story line. This book just jumps around from situation to situation without any good reasons why. It's like the author decided on what he considered to be 8-10 cool scenarios and contrived the story to get his character there without any regard for what the character himself was likely to do. This led to a somewhat disjointed story.
-Far too much swearing. I'm not one who refuses to read books or watch movies with swearing in them but this was excessive. more often than not, the cursing made no sense and in spots detracted from my ability to understand what was going on and what the character was thinking. (i.e. how does "for f****'s sake" make any sense at all?)
-Pet peeve of zombies not being called zombies. You may not care too much about this and if so, disregard, but it really grinds my gears when people in stories take what is clearly a zombie and call it something else (walkers, biters, geeks, or in this case necros). If real life, people would be itching to call them zombies!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! (sort of)

-Flat, predictable secondary characters. We all know that some people would take a zombie apocalypse hard, but how many are there out there who would actually kill and feed other living people to their zombie-ish family? It's been done far too many times before.
-Predictable Ending. If you've seen/read any zombie stories, you know hoe this one will end. Build up of the situation until the author has written himself into a corner with the scale of it. Then the government comes in and fixes everything and kills all the zombies. It's been done before. A lot.

[Eric James-Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burn the Dead is a pastiche or Genre parody imitating and critiquing the common tropes and motifs of "zombie" fiction.

Rob, the protagonist and professional Necs burner (Necs is short for Necro-Morbus Sufferer - Rob elects to use this term because it is more "humane" than the term "zombie"), tells the story in its entirety addressing the reader directly. There aren't any fancy, modern narrative techniques in this one, just good ol' fashion storytelling. And done well too. Rob has a unique voice that comes off as both believable and witty. At the beginning, he's just an average guy working a shitty job. He has the sense of irony typical of a gravedigger, and the complacency of a plumber.

Without warning, this all changes when Rob finds himself personally affected by the "zombie" disease. No, he wasn't bit, but someone close to him was.

From here, the narrative takes on a completely different tone. There is a sense of urgency and suspense typical of the genre. It starts to read like a real zombie story even though the author maintains a polemical distance, subtly commenting on the inhumanity of zombie culture. I was impressed by this. While it would be easy to write a "zombie" farce such as Shawn of the Dead, it is a much more difficult endeavor to write subtle, clever parody.

Overall, I'd say this book would be enjoyable to anyone with a taste for humor, suspense, and clever writing. And it's an absolute treat for the fan of "zombie" fiction.

Highly Recommended

[Melissa Borsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yesterday I received a copy of this book from the author. I opened it to get some idea as to what it was like and didn't stop reading until the end! This is a highly addicting story about a man named Rob whose job it is to burn the "dead" once they have become infected and turn into zombies. One day at work he discovers that his wife Anna has become one of the infected and has to burn her body and then immediately goes on the search to find his son. This was a highly suspenseful read that kept my attention from beginning to end. Highly recommend!

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this, which is why it landed in the middle rating. I read it straight through in one day, so obviously I didn't hate it, but there are definitely some things that I thought it did better than others.

The first, and main, thing that I thought it did well was present a picture of the post-zombie apocalypse that I think is the most likely to happen: things get bad for awhile, then humanity pushes back and settles into a weird "new normal" that would have been unthinkable before. Zombies become nuisances rather than an existential threat. After all, we just lived through a pandemic that ended both because of scientific advances and because we...essentially got bored with the end of the world. But there is a "new normal" that would have made no sense in 2019, and we just kind of... roll along with it. Our resiliency is simultaneously one of the best and the worst of our traits. Humans really can acclimate to just about anything, even things we shouldn't normalize.

Perhaps especially things we shouldn't normalize, but that's a rant for a different time.

So the idea that there is now an industry that has sprung up in the aftermath, and there are now whole companies with government contracts to deal with flare ups and bodies, feels...very realistic to me. The protagonist's job is to burn the dead, literally, in that when the undead are captured, they are muzzled, restrained, bagged and sent to him for incineration. It falls firmly in the "it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it," category, right alongside "well, it pays the bills." At the start of the book, our hero Rob's complaints are the same of every working parent--long hours that cause him to miss bedtime with his kid, a jerk boss, feeling overworked and underpaid.

In spite of knowing that he shouldn't, he does what most of us would probably do in his place--he habitually unzips the bags enough to see the faces of the dead before he dumps them into the incinerator. He has periodic close calls due to this breach in protocol, but we all have to do something to get through the day, right? Some people play solitaire on their computer. Rob unzips body bags. In this world, that's the same thing.

Then, of course, one shift changes everything, when he unzips a bag and finds himself staring face to face with--his wife. A frantic check of the other bags reveals some of his neighbors, but not his four-year-old son. He abandons his shift and drives for home like a bat out of hell, only to be met with a police quarantine, the announcement that his son is listed as "missing," and a request for him to go somewhere else and wait however long it takes for the "Cleaners" to get the situation under control and find any remaining survivors, even if that takes up to a couple of days.

Obviously, no decent parent would stand for that, and Rob immediately starts hunting for a way into the quarantine zone to look for his son.

He, of course, has various adventures and encounters searching through his infested neighborhood for his son. I'm going to move past those, both because of spoilers and because they're not really the point of the rest of the review.

My biggest complaint is the flip side of my biggest compliment. If there is a whole system in place to handle outbreaks, it doesn't make any sense to me that he would not have gotten word of an outbreak in his neighborhood, and that he'd only find out by happenstance. Early on it's established that he gets no cell service at work, so he can't get texts or see missed phone calls until he's part way home. That explains why he didn't get the first texts and calls from his wife letting him know that she thinks she's infected, but it doesn't explain why there isn't some kind of alert system in place for people who live in areas that have outbreaks. Without his time-passing habit, he wouldn't have had any idea that anything had happened until he finished his shift and wandered on home. We have Amber Alerts, Silver Alerts, BOLOs, storm warnings, tornado sirens, and the most important ones are blasted into the air rather than relying on mobile phones. Rob works at a company whose very purpose is to help clean up the aftermath of outbreaks, and you're telling me there isn't so much as a blinking light on the wall or something?

Rob's supervisor has already left by the time he gets the last load of bodies, so it's possible that an alert went to the boss's office and he just didn't see it, but that seems like a pretty big gap in the plan.

Then, when Rob does make it to his neighborhood, there is zero concern by those on the scene that a child is missing--a four year old is unaccounted for, and nobody seems to care. There isn't even an option for those at the entrance to radio the Cleaners inside and tell them to keep an eye out for the child.

I'm not saying that those things couldn't happen due to human error or cracks in the system, but it seems like there just aren't any provision for these issues. Both Rob and the quarantine officer he argues with talk about procedure and protocol, and there is no indication that there was a step that's been missed or screwed up somehow. If the Cleaners are organized enough to have a list of houses and residents, and to have it already sorted by who is dead, who has been evacuated, and who is still unaccounted for, surely there should be something to flag particularly vulnerable individuals? Or something?

I am probably thinking about this too much, but it really irked me. If there'd even be a throw away section of, "But what about the alerts?" and "Well that's not my department, you'll have to speak to my supervisor on the next business day," I could have bought that. To have it unaddressed nagged at me the rest of the book.

Also, I think the book could really have benefitted by being longer. I read it through in a couple of hours, and part of that was because I was interested, but part of it was also--it's really short. It feels like more of a novella than a full novel. I would have been very willing to read a longer work that had the space both to address more of the situation and to give us more information on the main characters. You barely meet Rob, and have only one interaction with his wife Anna, in "normal" life. It's hard to become too invested in people we know so little about, so the urgency of the situation came purely from basic human instinct to support a father looking for a young child. I cared about "a father" and "a child" in theory more than I cared about Rob and Sammy. Adding even a few chapters would have helped that.

I looked at the rest of the series to see if the same characters show up in the next book, which might give me more information. But it looks like at least the first three books of the series cover roughly the same timeline from the perspective of three different people, and the only overlap is the world they live in (I could be wrong, I'm just guessing from the descriptions). The world is interesting, but doesn't hook me enough to move on to the rest of the series. I think that's a shame, because there is a lot of potential here. If the other books are longer or more in depth, someone let me know, and I may pick them back up.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

After recently getting overtaken by The Walking Dead, I decided to delve into some zombie lit and stumbled across this number. The premise was intriguing enough to stand out from the other options. It took awhile to get into this book though, as you can probably tell by the fact that it took over 2 months for me to get around to reading it. Honestly, the first 1/3 of the book was a little slow and somewhat repetitive with Rob (MC) continually talking to himself mentally about how he has to save his kid. I was rooting for him to save his kid, but for much of the beginning of his pursuit, it just seems like an aimless wild goose chase.

Burn The Dead finally gets interesting once Rob comes in contact with other human beings behind the containment zone. I would say the second-third of the book is actually quite engaging and engrossing. It was easier to power through these pages, and I was eager to pick it up again as soon as I could. However, the third act of the book, though possessing great potential, it felt like a let down in pace, tension, and resolution. Without going into any spoilers, I just found the resolution to have been too....easy?....for everything that Rob had endured. I checked ahead to see if the next book continues with Rob, but it doesn't. This is disappointing because I spent all this time getting to know Rob and the ending didn't really satisfy me.

Nevertheless, this book did have points that were quite entertaining and engaging. I wouldn't want anyone to think that I thought the book was bad. A few elements could've been altered for being a more satisfying read to me. Perhaps most concerningly is that the book took too damn long to get interesting. Maybe if Rob was more likable in the beginning, it'd be easier to slug through the slowness of the first-third of the book, but I really had to decide I was going to power through. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have made it to the redeeming second act.

We'll see if I read Book 2. Not sure yet. =)

[Kelly Chuckles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this novel after a recommendation and even though I take ages to read a book, this was so enthralling I completed it within three days of purchasing!
The story is a fast read and compelling, about life choices that we could not really dream of but if we had to choose what would we do.
Never been a lover of zombie books, but this one has enough of a story line to make you forget that this is the main line.
All in all a brilliant read, really enjoyed it with loads of twists and turns.
Can't wait for the next one from the author!

[Gary Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Zombie Story! The author took a fresh look at what might happen to a family trying to survive the outbreak of a virus which turns people into zombies. There were a couple of angles the story was written around. First there is a woman who is trying to keep her zombie riddled family in some sort of life. I found myself feeling sympathy for her. Then there was the neighbor who was trying to keep his family alive as well. There is a constant struggle to see who would prevail. I was entertained by this short story and couldn't put it down.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought 'Burn the Dead' because i am a really big horror fan and especially zombie books. i instantly got drawn into the plot which was so well written and tense. i found myself reading too fast sometimes because i wanted to see what would happen around the corner and i was not disappointed. Burn the Dead is genuinely unpredictable with twists and turns of a terrifying journey through a zombie riddled quarantined area. Read this book you definitely wont be disappointed!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed the concept of a world where Zombies were now commonplace & were dealt with in an institutionalized manor.The protagonist is a man who burns the dead for a living & his battle to protect his loved one.I recommend this book to any Zombie fan as a quick enjoyable read with character development & a unique twist on the genre.

[Lucy Law · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a new favourite zombie book! And it's BURN THE DEAD!!!!!

Loved it, from start to finish. So many twists and turns. It kept me guessing all the way to the last thrilling chapter.

I think this is one of his first novels.

MORE PLEASE!!!!!!!!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story from start to finish, lots of twists and expect the unexpected. Based on a strong lead character, it's dark yet humorous and fun to read. Get stuck in!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly great read!!!!! couldn't put it down!!! Excellent writing with unexpected twists in the story, even if your not a true zombie fan you'll find this an absorbing read!!!!

[hIpnoticraQs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting zombie read, full of unpredictable twists and turns. Relatable realistic characters. Action really picks up toward the end of the book, eagerly awaiting a sequel.

[Laina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to say that I liked the Robert character very much. The entire time I was reading this book, I was cheering him on, as he tried to find his son, Sammy. I couldn't believe some of the things he did, like getting on top of the roof of those houses, fighting off all of the Necs and getting that poor cleaner out of that truck.

I was sad when his wife, Anna, died. When he had to burn her in the incinerator thing, that was just horrible. And then again when his neighbor, Edith, had to lock herself up to keep Robert safe, like her brother had done for her.

Him having to kill Peter for real and for good, was also sad. And made worse by the fact that he had to do so in front of Edith, and even then it was already too late for her as she had been bitten.

Although, I have to admit that I find the fact that no one tried to kill that crazy Janet lady, a little much. And also, no one tried to get Sammy the hell away from this loony toon?

The whole thing with Janet tying up her zombiefied family and feeding them alive people was disgusting and off the charts insane. Just like the Governor in The Walking Dead, where he kept his zombiefied daughter tied up and eventually someone else had to kill her.

Also, not letting anyone drink, eat, or pee, is simply freaking horrible. I realize this is just a book, but I felt bad when the psycho woman told Sammy that the only way for him to use the bathroom, was on himself.

And when poor Sandra was fed to Janet's family.. again, ugh. That had me cringing, along with them being in the dark with Janet's family of tied up zombies. That would scare the living hell out of me.

I honestly wanted to smack that bitch, Janet. And seriously, her thinking that feeding her undead family 'fresh meat' in the form of human body parts is just.. ugh. I was glad when Robert was finally able to drop that generator thing on her head and fucking kill her.

This whole book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. I kept expecting zombies to jump out at him at every corner, and that scene at the church had me worried that the zombies in there were going to break free from their restraints and attack him.

The only thing I don't get is the end of the book. Are readers supposed to assume that Robert and Sammy moved closer to his mother and everything returned to normal? He went to work, and Sammy went back to school? Because after everything that happened, I find it hard to believe everything could go back to how it was.

[Ziggy Nixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars rounded up. A tense and interesting CHAPTER by Steven Jenkins that provided less than a few hours reading but was still enjoyable.

This is my first try at Jenkins' zombie books after both the 'Thea' duology (disappointing despite a good premise) and the first 3 'Blue Skin' books (the 1st two were terrific, the 3rd dropped off sharply, see my reviews for more). I enjoy Jenkins' writing style and he does have a good imagination - blending terrible and horrific situations into a realistic backdrop of modern life (if by realistic we're at a stage where 'Necs' are accepted as part of our daily lives). His personalized portrayals of these stories, their actors and the locales clicks with me as I used to have business outside of Manchester (I kid you not: the city of Ramsbottom is where I stayed) and every time I read one of these tales, it just seems all too plausible and very human. There's a very 'In The Flesh' vibe to his books - including this one - a show which left me shocked to the core for many moons after I saw it.

However, Jenkins' books including this one all too often leave the reader wanting more - or I guess I should say they leave ME wanting more. I guess that's a good thing (?) ... but I've just gotten to the point that a one-sitting read isn't my cup of tea... especially if I barely manage to get through said cup of tea before I'm here on goodreads blathering on about my experience (I do love a good blather). Maybe it's because the books are barely novella length (my google play version was a LOT shorter than the data here indicates, especially if you ignore all the ads for the rest of his books), but I really think its just because it seems like there's more untapped potential that isn't expressed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think Jenkins is a talented writer. Put otherwise: this is a fairly well-written story. Personally, I'd like to see him have a go at a solid 3 x 300-page trilogy and see just so can ALL see how good his writing chops really are! As it stands though, no matter how clever or even unique his stories manage to be, THIS book is just a second tier zombie tale in a crowded market full of same.

If that's where he's satisfied to be in terms of his career, great. But it's not going to keep folks coming back in greater numbers, which I think is a real shame, because he has shown strong hints that he could be blowing a lot of the competition away if he just set to it. As it stands now, even with the rest of the trilogy available on Kindle Unlimited, I'm not convinced I'll continue.

[Elspeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yawn.. This book was a bore.

I was so bored throughout reading it.

The premise of the book seemed super cool. Like wow he has a JOB burning zombies? Like what's the world like in this universe.
But it has nothing to do with any of that.


So my biggest issue with this book is why didn't the protag ever notice his wife is infected, you live in a world of zombies!! You know the symptoms so why not go just in case? It boggles my mind that it slipped not only the protags thoughts but also Jennkins (I think that's the bad lady who isn't a zombie's name). I legit spent the better half of the book pissed that he didn't think about it.
He even talks about how paranoid everyone becomes when he discusses the shot. So did he not become paranoid?? In a world full of this disease should it not be the FIRST thing you think of when you vomit? Or you know when you have bite from someone showing symptoms

The cleaners bothered me too. Like they're risking so much to just tie up and subdue zombies. I know in this universe they don't die by removing the head but there definitely has to be better ways then what they are doing to go about it.

What I did like was that they had a name for the disease and had done research on it. It was cool seeing a world that is affected by zombies but still going.

Why didn't the protag ever correlate that his dog was gone because of Jennkins? If he did I must of skimmed that part.

It was slow. I never felt like it ever sped up. I'm pretty surprised I pushed through it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much that I really struggled to put it down, despite needing sleep or the bath water becoming cold, or just life, getting in the way ...

I enjoyed the way in which we were introduced to the characters and the world they inhabit; it isn't forced on to the reader, but instead we are gently immersed into it. There is tension. There are unexpected shocks. It is terrifyingly sad and emotional, and yet it feels so normal, because it is Rob's normal. You really feel as if you get to know the characters, however brief some of their stories are, and you will them to survive or change or see the light, even though you realise that will might be fruitless.

A very focused and enjoyable spin on a genre which is often full of the same-old, same-old.

Very much looking forward to diving into the next in the series now!

[Jason Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tough one, really tough. On the one hand, the worldbuilding was clever and unique. The inciting incident was interesting and definately provided motivation. Here's the problem. Once we hit the middle, there's way too many detours down story paths that don't really affect the main storyline, waaay to much internal dialogue - particularly when the character has the same conversation with himself, or with other characters in addition to having it in his head - and just too many pages spent on stuff that is only loosely connected to the plot. The bit at the end in Janet's basement was interesting, but dragged out way to long and had too many contradictions.

Overall, not the worst zombie fiction I've read (and I read a lot of it) but could have been better.

[Cyrene Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the zombie genre is tragic, and this genre really brings out the half crazed. This story is not overly long, but it’s a bit repetitive and drawn out in spots, but a little more realistic with an average person trying to survive. This book is all one man’s point of view – so you really don’t get any idea about how the virus started, or how the fate of the world is. You get a couple days in the life on one average man, not a super hero, or an ex-military, just an average man trying to get to his son, and finding out more about a couple of neighbors than he probably wanted to.
Reviewed by Cyrene

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book, but the writing style grated on me. So instead of 4 or 5 stars, I can only give it 3.
This is not the typical Zombie story.
The usual run of the mill story involves some working class plod finding themselves in the start of a Zombie Apocalypse. This story (without giving it away) is very different and it was a fantastic idea! It did take me by surprise and I really enjoyed the change.
However our hero is drawn into Zombie-Land to rescue his family from certain death.
As much as I love the concept, the hero wore me down with too much 'woe is me'.

[Livvy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked. It's different. Rob work's as a burner. His wife turned after getting infected. His life turned upside and his little boy is lost after the neighborhood went to crap!. Rob pushed and kick some butt until he find him! Few twists here and there. It was little stiff with the writing flow but liked story. Just needed more on detail about the infection and how these people even gets in the first place felt last over that.

[Ursula · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast paced book. Read it in an afternoon, but I was compelled to finish the book & find out what happens. A nail biting page turner, set in Bristol (UK) this book features one man's race for his family's safety in a dangerous post infectious epidemic time. People think that they have learned how to live and cope with a dangerous disease but with inevitable government cut backs, everyone is just a single outbreak away from disaster. First in a series.

[Andreea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat different twist on the zombie genre

I have to say at first I didn't quite liked the main character, but it grew on me as his adventure progressed. It was nice to follow such a story from the perspective of somebody who's not the hero who saves humanity, but just the friendly neighbour. It somehow made the story special, being the hero of his own story. The 1st person story telling makes is readable in a single sitting, and the action does help with that.
Of course, now I have to buy all the books to get the whole story, but overall I'd say it's a good series if you are a fan of the mid-apocalyptic world.

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zombie revamped

This book is a new take on the zombie outbreak. It's after the initial outbreak and they have it under control for the most part. They tranq and mask the dead and then ship them to be burned. The story is of a person who burns them when the disease that causes the sickness comes close to home and he finds himself having to burn his wife's infected body. He goes in search for his son and falls into a mess.