Category: Reviewed by Barbara H.

Ashes by Ilsa Bick

Ashes is the story of Alex, a girl with an incurable brain tumor, who runs away into the woods to come to terms with her illness and say goodbye to her deceased parents.  As if that weren’t depressing enough, an unexplained electromagnetic pulse suddenly strikes, killing most of the population, turning teens into zombies, and giving some of the survivors the power of heightened senses.

With angry, eight-year-old Ellie and handsome Afghanistan War soldier Tom, Alex seeks answers to what has happened and fights for survival in a world where nothing is the same anymore.

Alex is a good, strong main character.  Even with her new powers, it is easy to root for her and care about what befalls her.  This new world is a perilous one and the adventures of these characters are frightening and addictive, dark and creepy.  Note:  A sequel is planned.

The Strain: Book One of the Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

A Boeing 777 jet arrives at JFK, stops dead and sits on the tarmac in darkness and silence.  Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, head of a CDC rapid-response team, boards to investigate.  The mysterious being that seemingly killed every passenger aboard is the subject of this chilling trilogy about a virus which brings the dead back as vampires.  In a pawn shop in Harlem, holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian has met this evil and may have the knowledge to destroy it.  After a riveting start, the story degenerates into killing after killing, as Eph’s son, ex-wife, and friends are soon in danger.  This one is still a must for all horror fans and will soon be a major motion picture.

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger

When Lady Duff Gordon, stricken with tuberculosis, leaves her home and family for the hot, dry climate of Egypt, her lady’s maid, Sally, accompanies her.  Much to Sally’s delight, Egypt offers her freedoms she would never have known in London.  She wears native clothing, learns Arabic, and falls in love with their Egyptian interpreter, Omar.  However, her new freedoms may prove her undoing.  A riveting plot with fascinating characters based on real-life events, Sally’s story examines power, race and class distinctions during Queen Victoria’s era.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

A riveting historical account of the Zombie War, this is a document that chronicles the experiences of men, women and children during the plague years.  Thought to have started in China, the virus that resulted in the rise of the living dead nearly brought about the end of human society.  This collection of individual survivor accounts is a follow-up to Brooks’ 2003 book The Zombie Survival Guide.  If you are a fan of zombie lit, you will enjoy this chilling post-apocalyptic horror collection which adds the human element to a United Nations report that was mainly facts and figures.

Third World America: How our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream by Arianna Huffington

Written by the founder of The Huffington Post and popular liberal pundit, Third World America describes the effect our current economic climate is having on the middle class. Jobs are disappearing, our infrastructure is crumbling, education suffers, and middle-class Americans are described as “an endangered species.”  Extremely readable, with many chilling examples of economic and personal loss, this book makes concrete suggestions for averting catastrophe. Liberals will love it and conservatives, while not agreeing with all her assertions, should find much of interest, too, as Huffington offers hope for difficult times.