I voluntarily requested a copy of this book, which was provided in return for this review.
The trauma of childbirth can be difficult enough, but what if the child is born after its mother has been infected with a rabies-like condition that zombifies its victims, destroying their minds and enabling them to feed on uninfected humans as well as one another?
That’s the position Calvin and his wife are in when their son is born. For weeks, the two had been working to avoid being bitten and infected—something hard to do, since the zombies travel in packs. They debated whether to leave or stay, and her pregnancy was a major factor in the decision to stay close to home. But days before she went into labor, she was infected. Knowing she would die, she bore the child and gave it to her husband to care for. To his horror, he finds that her body follows him and the child wherever they go. At one point, he straps her rotting carcass into his car and talks to her as he drives to get away from the other infected ones. He stops long enough to let her feed on fellow zombies, somehow convinced that she will never turn on him or the child.
While he wanders in search of a sanctuary for the unbitten, he encounters a pre-teen girl, Hannah, who is street smart beyond her years and good with a gun. That’s a skill that comes in handy as the two travel together with the newborn and Calvin’s dead wife following not far behind.
I have to confess that this was a bit darker than the fiction I would normally take on. Parts of it were pretty disturbing. But the plot twist at the end will leave you reeling, and that makes it worth the credit.
The narration added much to the book. In fact, I think the audio copy has more impact than would the print one.