Review: Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel by Jonathan Maberry

Title: Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel
Author: Jonathan Maberry | Website
Available: Now
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Horror/Zombies
Source: Amazon Vine










Description via Goodreads:


A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave.  But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects.  Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up.  Hungry.  Infected.  Contagious.  This is the way the world ends.  Not with a bang…but a bite.


My thoughts:


Dead of Night takes place in a small Pennsylvania town that becomes infested with flesh eating zombies after a notorious serial killer, injected with a serum that would cause his conciousness to stay aware once he was buried, awakes in the local funeral home and starts feasting on the unsuspecting residents. The epidemic spreads quickly through the small town and soon even the police force have become one of the walking dead. 



Over the course of Dead of Night we see the chaos through the eyes of numerous characters. I found this quite difficult to follow for the the first 50-80 pages, but once I had become used to Maberry's writing style and the "voices" of his characters I was able to read the remaining 300 pages without difficulty. I liked that we not only saw the action via the villains and heroes, but from the POV of one of the infected. It was interesting to experience the thought process of a character carrying the infection. To know a little awareness still remained made this novel all the more frightening.


With so many characters weighing in, you'd think character development would be lacking. This wasn't the case. I sympathized with those fighting for the greater good and despised the bad guys. You won't believe who ends up being the bad guys in this one! Officer Dez Fox is determined to save her little town. She is a character that comes into this madness all ready emotionally damaged. It seems characters that share this quality are always more willing to put their life on the line. I liked her though and her partner J.T.


I'd most definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a gruesome (emphasis on the gruesome) tale of zombies taking over the world one small town at a time. The ending of Dead of Night was wide open, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it turn into a series (and I definitely wouldn't complain).

My Rating:

Review: Rise Again by Ben Tripp (Blog Tour)

Title: Rise Again
Author: Ben Tripp
Publisher: Pocket
Number of pages: 352
Available: Now
Reading Level: Adult


5 out of 5 Stars










Description from publisher:


It’s Fourth of July in Forest Peak, California, a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Sheriff Danielle Adelman, a troubled Iraq war veteran, thinks she has all the problems she can handle in this all-American town after her kid sister runs away from home. But when a disease-stricken horde of panicked refugees fleeing the fall of Los Angeles swarms her small mountain community, Danny realizes her problems have only just begun—starting with what might very well be the end of the world.  She thought she had seen humanity at its worst in Iraq, but nothing could prepare her for the remorseless struggle to survive a world overrun with reanimated dead and men turned monster. Obsessed with finding her sister at all costs, Danny’s epic and dangerous journey across the California desert will challenge her spirit, and bring her to the precipice of sanity itself.

My thoughts:

Danielle Adelman, known to most as Danny, is an ex Marine struggling with a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Working as the sheriff in the small town of Forest Peak, California, and drowning her nightmares in pills and alcohol. She is also responsible for the care of her younger sister who decided the 4th of July was a good day to run away. Danny wakes up with a wicked hangover to find her sister, and beloved Ford Mustang gone. Thinking the worst thing she’d have to do that day is suffer silently through the small town’s Independence Day festivities while waiting for word Kelley has turned up. She soon discovers she’ll be fighting more than a hangover when people start behaving strangely.

Let me start by saying this book was scary as hell. I don’t read a lot of horror or watch many scary flicks, but I have a strange love of all things zombie. Rise Again was the perfect combination of flesh eating undead, and human response when things start to fall apart.

Main character Danny isn’t like any female protag you’ve met before. She isn’t beautiful, nor is she brilliant. She’s a hard ass and street smart. As the plot progresses she deals with flashbacks of her time in Iraq, while trying to cope with the zombie invasion happening in her present. She is described in the book as “the unstoppable alpha female”. I found that to be the perfect description for Danny. She’s flawed, and doesn’t realize how badly until her only family takes off leaving just a brutally honest letter behind. She’s left feeling compelled to find her missing sister, Kelley, and save the civilians who have put their faith in her as their savior from the madness taking over the country. I loved reading about Danny’s journey.

Not only does this book have a great main character, but the secondary characters are perfect additions to the story line. I loved watching them grow as characters throughout the novel. At least those lucky enough to survive ;) Parts of this novel gave me chills. Especially when they’re listening to the reports from the weather channel on the radio. Super creepy!

Gruesome and intense, but I loved every minute! I devoured this novel like the undead did their human prey. The perfect addition to my Halloween reading list!

Goodreads | Amazon

Source: Received from the publisher in exchange for my honest review and participation in the Rise Again Blog Tour