Shadows by Ilsa J Bick

Shadows is book 2 in the Ashes trilogy.

I enjoyed the first book immensely.
It raced along with lots of action, suspense and left us with a fabulous cliff-hanger ending.

I was looking forward to Shadows release date with great anticipation.

And... well... it's okay.

Sorry, that's the best I can do.

Shadows is so full of action and drama and bloody showdowns that character development and plot have gone out the window. I'm tempted to say that they were sacrificed in a gory zombie feeding fest half way through the first chapter!

The muliple viewpoints doesn't work very well either - it allows for lots of quick shifts in action, but it provides little opportunity to get to know anyone or feel like you care what happens. About half way through I thought,  "Oh for god's sake, release the zombies and just kill everyone off and be done with it!"

Having said all that, I can't help but think that this trilogy would make a great fright-night movie. You know - one of those movies with so much action and scary makeup that you don't realise how slight the story actually is until someone asks you at the end what it was about!

The Walking Dead

Warning: this is not a book review!

My husband and I have become hooked on a new TV series from the US.

It is not for the faint-hearted.
It is bloody, gory and freakin' scary!

During season one I hid behind the pillows several times an episode.

Season two has had lots of OMG-I-didn't-see-that-coming moments and a lot more character development as it settles into a longer-running series format.

The costume and artistry involved in making the walking dead creatures is outstanding. They are genuinely creepy, believable and capable of haunting your next nightmare.

And as for Andrew Lincoln! Mmmmmmmmmmmm

I loved Egg in 'This Life' and he made me laugh in 'Teachers'. He played the perfect lovesick-for-my-bestfriends-girl in 'Love Actually' and now he plays the sharp-shooting, moral highground, family man in 'The Walking Dead' with a convincing American accent.

If you have missed all the zombie action so far, you could catch up by downloading the episodes online. There are facebook pages and oodles of other links to follow along...if you dare!

Ashes by Ilsa J Bick

The end of the world is nigh!
According to the latest crop of teen books to hit my radar we don't have long to wait. Will it be a mutant virus? A nuclear dome? Or in the case of Ashes - electro-magnetic pulses that destroy every electronic system, fry healthy brains, and change other brains for better or worse.

Hormonal teenage brains get zapped into zombie, flesh-eating creatures. Older, diseased brains are suddenly cured, sleep-deprived brains are spared and some brains become super-sensitive.
Alex is a special case - a teenager with a brain tumour, prone to nightmares. She develops a super sense of smell. Tom is a returned soldier suffering from post traumatic stress and Ellie is only 8.

I wasn't that keen to get started on this book - zombies and love in the wild isn't usually high on my priority list. But thankfully Ashes is so much more than that. It is a great addition to the Armageddon genre.

I raced through each drama and catastrophe and let out an audible "aarghhhh" when the book finished on a cliff-hanger leaving all the loose ends flailing about madly. Book 2 is not due for another 6 months, but we can be prepared by checking out Bick's blog here.

My only hiccup with the book was the number of clumsy accidents that the 3 main characters had. Bick obviously used this device to add suspence and drama. I just found it frustrating.