I used to read horror stories all the time when I was
younger in my teens (yes, I know that was a few years ago) but quite quickly it
became the same old rubbish, formulatic rubbish which I quickly out-grew.
Fast forward towards my mid to late 20’s, I got into more
adult based comics such as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Jamie Delano’s
Hellblazer, both of which took horror into a very much mature way with
characters which you could see and relate to much more strongly than the horror
authors I won’t name I used to read in my teens.
Nowadays, of course horror has spun off into different
directions, with a spell of horror been popular with the field of Vampires, and
now Zombies.
Of course, thinking about Zombies it’s easy to think of the
success of the Walking Dead, of which I watched the first three or so series
and have read the comics at some point too.
Of course, thinking about the above – it is easy to dismiss
anything that comes along in that field as a cash in etc which I think
completely misses the point certainly in the case of Amanda Steel’s novella
‘after the zombies’.
This short novella is about a small circle of survivors
suriving a zombie attack in my hometown, Manchester, UK. Although the central
trio of characters, Grace, Mark and Luke are all very well wrote and developed
which is a major plus certainly in any book of this genre, what really
impressed me in particular was the flashbacks that came throughout the
narrative and really added to the story instead of delaying the narrative.
The pacing is spot on throughout the book and considering
how slow a reader I am with books nowadays, caused me to struggle to put the
book with and certainly acts as a really good start to a series.
Recommended.
The book can be bought here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/After-zombies-Amanda-Steel/dp/1530093929?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&redirect=true&ref_=x_gr_w_bb&tag=x_gr_w_bb_uk-21
