Autumn

by:  David Moody

Publisher:  St. Martin's Griffin

A bastard hybrid of War of the Worlds and Night of the Living Dead, Autumn chronicles the struggle of a small group of survivors forced to contend with a world torn apart by a deadly disease. After 99% of the population of the planet is killed in less than 24 hours, for the very few who have managed to stay alive, things are about to get much worse. Animated by "phase two" of some unknown contagion, the dead begin to rise. At first slow, blind, dumb and lumbering, quickly the bodies regain their most basic senses and abilities... sight, hearing, locomotion... As well as the instinct toward aggression and violence. Held back only by the restraints of their rapidly decomposing flesh, the dead seem to have only one single goal - to lumber forth and destroy the sole remaining attraction in the silent, lifeless world: those who have survived the plague, who now find themselves outnumbered 1,000,000 to 1...

Without ever using the 'Z' word, Autumn offers a new perspective on the traditional zombie story. There's no flesh eating, no fast-moving corpses, no gore for gore's sake. Combining the atmosphere and tone of George Romero's classic living dead films with the attitude and awareness of 28 Days (and Weeks) later, this horrifying and suspenseful novel is filled with relentless cold, dark fear.

I read a lot of bad reviews of this book and I think they didn't like it because it wasn't action packed and full of blood and guts.  It says right there on the back of the book that it doesn't have that.  This book was about the survivors and the actions they take to make it through this tragic event.  It's not about the zombies, so if you want a big gory zombie book, this one probably isn't for you.

I loved this book, and not just because my name is Autumn, and not just because David Moody arranged for me to get an ARC.  I thought it was a really good story.  It was scary and tense and I couldn't put it down!  I would suggest not reading this one late at night all by yourself.  I was getting myself really freaked out about every little sound.

The characters were interesting.  I particularly liked Michael and Emma.  I'm really hoping for some romance between those two!  Carl was ok, not my favorite because he was so moody, but I could understand where he was coming from.   As a parent, I could empathize with his situation.

I can't wait to read more of this series.  It looks like there are 4 more books on the way.  I'm going to have to check out the Hater Trilogy and see how I like it.

This book will be released on October 26th!