The problem with Suzanne Park’s The Perfect Escape is that it’s two different books weirdly glued together. The first half is a rich girl-poor boy YA across-the-tracks story which I was really starting to get into, when WHAM! The rich girl and the poor boy are suddenly in a Hunger Games-style survivalist zombie competition. There’s…
Deathless Divide is the eagerly anticipated sequel to the bestselling, engrossing Dread Nation. Picking up immediately after the events of the first novel, this story (and therefore this review) contains serious spoilers for that book. After escaping the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene, Kate (Katherine) Deveraux and their small band of followers have a simple…
The Iron Duke is #80 on AAR’s Top 100 Romances (2013), but in my opinion, The Kraken King, the fourth book in the series, is even better. Zenobia Fox is the author of the novels starring her adventurer brother Archimedes, but these books have made her a ransom target for people seeking to extort the…
If you read only one YA novel this year, make it Dread Nation. Part Zombie Land, part Django Unchained, channeling a bit of The Hunger Games and also something wholly original, this is a tale of what happens when the undead rise while America’s race war rages. The Civil War is over. But not because…
This is the first book I have read by this author, and for the first half or so, I read it with rather mixed feelings, mostly delighted but thoroughly exasperated at certain passages. Fortunately it turned out to be an excellent read overall, and most definitely a series to follow. Let’s begin with the best…
Zombie romance. Yeah, I can’t be the only one who has qualms about putting those two words together. Rotting corpses just aren’t that romantic. Being the last hope for humankind, however, with a handsome former-CEO turned zombie outbreak survivor searching for his missing sister definitely has the makings of an intriguing zombie romance. Megan Fletcher…
The dystopian world of the Iron Seas series thrives in this third installment featuring the stoker on an airship and a scientist studying volcanoes who face an evil genius on the treacherously cold plains of Iceland. Both Annika and David are on quests: she to find her sister Källa and he to fulfill his dying…
Narrated by Alison Larkin I’m a big fan of Meljean Brook’s Iron Seas series but was disappointed to learn that Faye Adele had been replaced as narrator. That disappointment increased as I began listening to the book. I had problems with both the narration and the story. This feels different than earlier series entries. Much…
There is a danger to anticipation. It can lead to let down. When you are anxiously awaiting a novel and it turns out to be nothing more than filler, people can get cranky. Very cranky, very quickly. That was the case for me here – I loved the first novel in this series but book…
A world controlled by the Horde. Nanoagents. Clockwork men. Europe overrun with zombies. We can be only one place: The Iron Seas. This outstanding steampunk series combines dangerous women, adventurous men, endless action, and scintillating romance. Lovers of this genre really can’t do better than to pick up one of these tales. This novel starts…