Not so long I’ve joined Twitter’s (yes, its name is Twitter) Book Bubble. I liked to read about new releases from the authors themselves. I adore the fact that I can communicate with authors, buy their book, read it, and then tell them about what I liked, didn’t like and, most importantly, I like to be helpful. I like to share with people my almost 40-year bookworm experience and tell them about my favorite books. The time I joined the community perfectly aligned with the start of the so-called Spooky Season, the whole month of October has been dedicated to the cruel, gory and scary world of horror fiction. I’m not really a fan of horrors myself, but you know, you need to play the game according to the rules. So I picked a couple of safe options, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Warhammer 40k’s Lelith Hesperax, just to be in the flow, and jumped into the season.
What else is important is that the indie community is very inventive and creative, especially when it is about their main genre. So all the indie authors started to promote their horror novel, but honestly, I’d been indifferent till some nice book trailer hit my thread. Here it is:
And I was hooked at once. Bought the book, finished the current read and here we are looking at each other, me and this creepy skull on the cover.
At first I was a bit bored, kind of long and fundamental setup, some very strange relationship, no, wait, not strange… abusive… cruel… wait, what? What the fuck? What did he do to HER? Shit!!! And it took me three days to finish this novel…
I liked how the backstory of both main characters was divided in small chunks and we were spoon-fed with it along the whole book. The characters are as broken as possible, with their own flaws and fears, traumas and strengths. Their inner conflicts were written nicely and believably. Although I always felt both sympathetic and empathetic to them, I wanted them to survive. Kate, the first main character, broken by her abusive, cruel, and psychopathic husband Connor, (“I love you, Kate. Do you love me?” – fucking goosebumps…) tries to find her place in this new world after one year of their “marriage”. She has no survivalist skills except for her inhuman power of will. And Nick, an ex-marine, broken by his military service in Afghanistan, has a lot of bodies in his mind closet and is very close to killing himself. He has all the skills needed except the will to live. A perfect match, you would say…
The world around them wasn’t nice and helpful. Usual post-apocalyptic shithole, as it is shown in every second Hollywood movie. A typical American suburb I have never been to. When imagining what it could look like, I saw scenes from “The Last of Us”, “Resident Evil”, and “Leave the World Behind”. Quite believable, but nothing special. What I liked about the world was how organically all the characters lived in this world, how they were a part of it. All the scenes were detailed enough and used a lot. And the non-main characters were really good. Every person Nick and Kate were interacting with were well-written, with their own goals, motivations, desires (that’s important), and fears (that’s even more important). Some characters were just disgusting (hey Connor), but again, very believable. Some were traditional zombie-apocalypse buddies (hello Jeff), but with a couple of differences that help them to stand out of the crowd.
The Infected. I don’t want to spoil it at all. They were creepy, they were scary. Every encounter with them was possibly lethal for the character. There were a lot of them, different types of them and they had some kind of lore.
The plot is a traditional road movie. Characters are in the Point A, need to get to the Point B, occasionally making a couple of detours with a couple of pot twists and surprises. At the same time it’s amazing how well it’s written. It’s the first Molly Macabre’s novel and the writing is top tier. Action scenes are very realistic, but without much gore. Some moments are really fucking scary (laughing girl). What I found especially outstanding and touching are scenes in the basement. Oh boy, it was tough for me to crawl through them, the emotional burden was so real and overwhelming, I had to make pauses during the reading.
The ending is fucked up. Didn’t like it at all. I don’t want to go into the spoiler area, but after all the adventures I’d prefer something more inventive. Now I’m waiting for the second book and its ending to be “the right one”.
Some scenes were nice fan service, I liked them a lot. The whole mansion plotline, Kate reading a book, etc. Magnificent! Big and scary hospital, some dumb decisions – this book is a modern horror classics! Definitely!
Conclusion: even if you are not into horror, like me, you will like the novel. It is a well-written, well-paced zombie horror adventure with believable broken characters and some really scary scenes. You can find some psychological thriller elements with moments that are beyond disturbing. Try it out!
