"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat." - Leviticus 26:29
When two cannibalistic, gravely wounded men stagger into the town of Gehenna, all Hell breaks loose. Infamous outlaw Mad Dog McCall, stuck in the city jail, must fight for his life to escape. The lonely, intelligent, and snarky Karen must make horrific sacrifices to survive the night against the growing army of the dead.
Together they set upon a journey of biblical proportions, fighting against the living and the infected, hoping against hope to find a safe haven in the middle of Hell.
The Old West can't fathom the zombie hoard that is about to consume it.
My Review:
Let me start by saying I'm really not a western fan. Yes, I've read western versions of most genres and enjoyed them, but I don't go searching them out. In fact some times I've been known to not choose a book simply because it is set in cowboy country. So glad I decided to read Gehenna for the A to Z challenge. Of course it helped that at heart Gehenna is a zombie novel with western trappings, but no matter it was a fun read.
Let's start with the characters. There is your typical western hero gunslinger and the heroine is a whorehouse worker with a good head on her shoulders. Yes I said typical, but the voices the author gave them made them seem anything but. McCall and Karen are memorable and funny. But it wasn't just the main characters, the supporting ones were interesting as well. I actually felt bad when some of them died. (Although there was one I was cheering when the zombies chomped him.)
The story itself is fast paced and fun! While it doesn't get into the how or why of the zombies, that's ok. It's the beginning of a series, the zombie hows and whys can always be explained later. The way they were introduced and how they spread was well done. Also the way the characters discovered how to kill them. After all this is the wild west, not the present day, people there just don't expect zombies, and seeing them deal with it was interesting.
The zombies themselves were great. They chomped and moaned and chomped some more. That's what zombies are supposed to do, and they did it. I will, however, make a note here that the zombie violence virtually jumps off the page. In layman's terms? Very detailed gore. So squeamish readers beware!
As I said in the beginning I'm not usually a huge western fan, but Gehenna definitely won me over. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. Get your own e-copy now while it's still free on Amazon.
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