Title: Induction (Time of Death #1)

Author: Shana Festa

Genre: horror

Publication Date: May 2014

Book Description (from Goodreads):

When no one or nowhere is safe, where do you go to escape the monsters?

In a few short days, 37 year old Emma Rossi’s hard work will finally pay off. She will don her cap and gown and graduate with a degree in nursing, but not before she loses her first patient and is confronted with a new reality. In Cape Coral, Florida, a storm approaches. The dead are coming back to life.

And they’re hungry.

Infection ravages the Eastern Seaboard with alarming speed while attempts to contain the spread of infection fail. Within days, a small pocket of panicked survivors are all that remain of civilization. Fighting to survive the zombie apocalypse alongside her husband Jake and their dog Daphne, Emma comes face-to-face with her worst nightmare.

Relying on snarky wit and sheer determination, she is forced to commit atrocious acts to protect her family and avoid joining the ranks of the undead.

Time of Death is author Shana Festa’s full-length novel debut.

Review:

I received a free audiobook of this novel for an honest review.

It’s hard to believe that this is Shana Festa’s first full-length novel. I keep saying that I don’t like zombies but I keep getting books with zombies that I really like. Such is the case with Induction.

Shana Festa was able to introduce Emma in such a way that the story wasn’t slow at the beginning as stories often are. I thought including some humor at the beginning was a great idea since the zombies hadn’t shown up yet and  it’d be difficult to make zombies funny. I do, however, want to note that, while the whole Code Brown angle was really funny, I worked in Orthopedics for over 3 years and we only had one Code Brown during that time. Believe me, one was enough!

Induction is full of suspense and had me on the edge of my seat often (probably not good when I’m driving). It was also explicitly gory so I would not recommend it for younger readers. The characters were well developed. In fact, I became attached to several of them and found myself crying a couple times.

If you like post apocalyptic zombie stories, you’ll definitely like this book. Even if you don’t care for the whole zombie thing, you may still like it like I did. I look forward to reading the second book in the series.