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days of love and blood

Book Review of R.S. Carter’s Days of Love and Blood

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days of love and blood

Author, R.S. Carter, sent me a copy of her novel Days of Love and Blood. I also know that I’ve seen if on the free KDP list and until April 20th you can enter to win a paperback copy here.

Description from Goodreads:
A post-apocalyptic zombie book for women.

Without the zombies.

Worse than zombies.

The Demon Virus spreads worldwide in a matter of days leaving nothing but a few uninfected people in its path along with disease-riddled survivors who possess homicidal tendencies.

Carson drives across the country, back to her parents’ farm, with her son Ronan to begin a new life in a post-apocalyptic world. There she discovers more uninfected people like herself and attempts to build new relationships after the devastating loss of her husband.

Two men distract Carson from her grief, each possessing different characteristics that she found, loved and needed in her husband. Cooper has a bad attitude but gives Carson the space she needs with his self-sufficient, independent ways. Ben panders after her but exhibits a kindness she appreciates. Neither of them embody all of which she lost in her husband’s death.

The need for human interaction intertwines with the daily struggle of tribulation, remorse and adjustment, revolving around the constant battles between the uninfected and the last remaining homicidal maniacs. Days of Love and Blood is a story which examines the bonds created between people in times of change with an unexpected shocking end that will have you questioning your own threshold for pain.

Review:
I didn’t expect to like this book anywhere near as much as I did. You wouldn’t expect ‘sweet’ to be the word to come to mind when talking about post-apocolyptic zombies, but I really did think a lot of this book was. Not all of it of course. There was a lot of violence, some truly evil men, and heart break. I teared up at least once. But I also laughed a lot and most importantly Carson was a character I understood. She was… was… was… hmm, think Sarah Connor meets Beatrix Kiddo, who then takes on The Walking Dead. She’s one scary mama.

Really, the herding homicidal zombies are just the backdrop that gives this story a setting. Carson’s love for her son, grief, struggle to let herself accept love and go on with her life are the true story here. And it’s a good one. I liked it a lot. I also absolutely adored Cooper. He was flawed, really flawed, but his emotional honesty was heart wrenching. It and his good-‘ol-boy drawl were the star of the show as far as I was concerned. Ben, Ivy, Ronan and all of the others had their place too, but Cooper was my uncontested favourite.

Lastly, I appreciated that bad things happened. I don’t mean that in any sort of sadistic way. I just mean it’s realistic that there isn’t always a hero to show up at the last second to save the day. A lot of authors wimp out before allowing their characters to really suffer. That doesn’t happen here. Some of the latter scenes were hard to read and, honestly, I don’t know if I found it necessary for the plot to go there in the way it did. If for no other reason than it’s such an over-used plot device for creating outrage. I had come to expect more from the book. I know I thought the whole ‘this has happened before’ Schtick was a bit much for me. But I still appreciated the realism of allowing the story such dark elements.

My only real complaints are that the whole ‘warrior mother’ was a little heavy handed at times and I found some things a bit repetitive. But these are small qualms in a sea of rose coloured love. This book is definitely worth picking up.

Book Review of Nicholas Kerkoff’s Be’askaas – Tales of Death and Redemption.

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Be'askaas

Author, Nicholas Kerkoff, sent me a copy of his novel Be’askaas – Tales of Death and Redemption. I was relieved to discover that it isn’t, in fact, a series of short stories, but one novel.

Description from Goodreads:
Two young brothers are cast out into the hard world when their inebriated father loses the family farm. Their only option is to become apprentices for an elderly necromancer many miles away. It’s a disgusting occupation which society fears and despises. The poor rural kids know little of magic and even less about the world at large, but through a series of wizardly jobs and perilous adventures they begin to learn the true nature of power and the potential of their new dark art.

Review:
Honestly, I have a hard time sub-categorising Be’askaas – Tales of Death and Redemption. Yes, at its core it’s a fantasy novel. It has sorcerers, Earth witches, Niads, demons, necromancers, gods, dragons and zombies. No question about it. It’s a fantasy novel. But somehow it doesn’t have the whimsy I associate with the upbeat contributions to the genre, it isn’t epic (though there are a couple long treks), and somehow despite its subject matter I wouldn’t call it dark fantasy either. It’s…philosophical…maybe.

As the two young students, Rafe and Gywn, spend their first year in the company of the necromancer, Yulsef, they learn how little they understood of the world around them and some important life lessons. The reader, by extension, does too. I consider these lessons more important that the story that encompasses them; simple gems like knowledge complicates life. It’s much easier to live in comfortable ignorance than to separate yourself from the herd with true understanding. It’s really particularly genius that the characters are so young. Their minds are relatively uncluttered to start with. So while they spend a lot of time gaping in amazement, there is very little unlearning necessary.

The book is slow. I don’t mean in a ‘god, please let something happen soon’ kind of way. Plenty happens. Rather it is paced and methodical, so that was all good. I only had two true complaints. One, there are quite a few characters introduced in such a short book and often the POV would shift to these new characters before they were introduced. This threw me every single time. Second, I probably would have given the book five stars if it had a little bit more of an ending. I suspect there is a lot more to come. After all one year in the life of a 10 and 13 year old apprentice leaves plenty of room for more and the inkling of civil unrest sets the stage for future adventure. It’s just that this book feels unfinished. It’s only 118 pages long and ends abruptly, with no real wrap up. No real task accomplished or quest finished, either for that matter. There isn’t any real indication of why it should end when it ends. It just does. I was let staring at the phrase “to be continued…” with a distinct sense of dissatisfaction.