Friend of the blog: Blood and Tears by James Chamber

A zombie apocalypse story.

I'm a bit confused by this book. I saw that it was the second in a series, so I wasn't surprised when the story started in the middle, so to speak, with the apocalypse well underway and characters referring to things that have already happened. I just figured all of that happened in the first book, and I followed along as best I could. But then it suddenly flashed back and started covering all the things people had talked about. So...none of it happened in the earlier book? Or, maybe, people who read that one are bored going over the same ground, I don't know which.

I'm also not sure what the section about the young boy is doing there. It just leads out of Vale's story. I assumed Vale and her people were going to meet with the boy, but the book ended very abruptly, and the 'next time' section doesn't mention any of them.

Overall, I enjoyed the read but it did leave me very confused. If these are unrelated stories set in the apocalypse and we never go back to anyone, that's one thing. But let us know that's what it is.

I'd read the other volumes if I could, just to see if anything makes more sense afterwards!


EDIT: The publisher has confirmed that the story is meant to complete across four volumes, not just the one I read, which does help to make much more sense of things!

A chronicle of survival in a world of the living dead.
There is no Heaven or Hell; there is only blood and the dust of flesh.

Vale’s safe, contented existence was a lie exposed when the dead began to walk.
The truth was she’d been “dead” for years, no less aimless or lost than the reanimated corpses devouring the world. But with society collapsing, Vale came to life and discovered things about herself she never would’ve learned in the old world.
Now that she was really alive, she refused to let the dead take that away from her.
She never expected the world outside her apartment to be so much more brutal and deadly than she’d imagined. She didn’t count on the cruelty and madness she found among the airport people. Then the stranger came, walking among the living dead as if he was invisible, untouchable, a living mystery with the terrifying power to thrust them all into a whirlwind of madness and violence in the name of faith. And Vale, who prefers to see the world through the scope of her rifle, must fight to stay alive…