Dead Awakenings

Rebekah
Ganiere
Genre: 
Paranormal

Evaine is your typical starving college student, although she is engaged to a rich man. She wants to make her own way in the world without relying on his money. Her advisor tells her about a medical experiment she could sign up for in order to pay for classes.  The experiment literally kills her, turning her into an undead body with a soul. Luca is part of this group of living experiments, only he and his familyrescue newborns and teach them how to survive in a dead body.

 

Set in New York, where college students and homelessness abound and no one recognizes just how many people are missing, Ms. Ganiere has created a new, and incredibly intriguing, sub-genre of zombies: ones with souls and vampiriclike abilities. There is no apocalypse, no passing of viruses, and typicalzombies, who are that way because the experiment went wrong, or they choose to live that way. Eating humans is more addicting than any drug, but not an absolute necessity for life as a Deader. That choice separates the two groups. Abilities, like telepathy and mind control, usually associated with vampires, are side effects of the experiments, with each undead having different skills. These side effects creates an unbreakable, and completely unwanted, mental and physical link between Evaine and Luca, and their struggle to accept and use it is the backbone of how every undead must choose how they will continue to live. Near the end, several pages completely lose the formatting, marking the only negative in a fantastically written, I-cant-wait-for-the-next-one, set-up of a new, remarkable series. 

 

This zombie twist is going to be a yardstick for all others!

 

Julie York