Seventeen-year-old Krista has already proven she can survive the zombie hordes.

After moving to North Platte with her distant cousin General Liet to help build a wall that will keep the zombies in the West, it becomes apparent that the zombies aren’t the biggest threat—some survivors are far more dangerous than Krista had ever imagined.

With the help of Quinn, a survivor and fighter from the zombie-infested wildlands of the West, they free the garrison at North Platte from the power-hungry Liet. But there is a bigger battle to fight.

The Families who rule Florida and use intimidation and the threat of the zombie horde to coerce their territory want Krista and Quinn captured, the zombies want to devour them, and other survivors want them dead. Caught between powerful forces, will they survive long enough to devise a new plan and put it into action? Or will they self-destruct?

Say what you will about zombie apocalypses, but I find the idea to be somewhat intriguing. Especially since it’s a scenario where you wouldn’t truly understand what is happening until it’s already too late. But what I enjoy most about Pembroke Sinclair’s zombie apocalypse, is the fact that despite there being flesh eating zombies, survival is still highly plausible in this world. I would almost dare to say they are finding survival to be a bit too easy, if I’m being honest, what with it being several years in and they can still find fuel, drive cross country back and forth and clean clothes.

In this sequel, the story picks up right after the ending of Life After the Undead. Krista, Quinn and the rest of the inhabitants of North Platte have succeeded in overthrowing Krista’s skeezy cousin, Liet, but they know the time has come to leave before the Families in Florida plot an attack. However, as much time as they believe they have, they are astounded when a set of helicopters arrive and blow up the town. After all, their next plan was to figure out how to liberate the people in Florida from the Families. But this show of strength definitely puts a damper on things.

Like every great zombie apocalypse book, the biggest threat to Krista and the people from North Platte is the living, not the dead. After all, the zombies have increasingly become less and less of a threat as their bodies continue to deteriorate. The journey in this book seems to be a fairly short one. After all, the book takes place over the course of a few weeks. However short it may feel, I think the author did a great job at keeping the pacing both quick and smooth. Also, it was nice to see some of the answers to Krista’s questions from the previous book, coming to light. After all, isn’t it natural to want to know how the world fell into despair or at least the events of what happened in the beginning of the apocalypse.

The only issue I had with this book revolved around the remnants of the world Krista lived in. Sometimes things seemed a bit too convenient for her and the other survivors. For example, it’s been three years and a group of survivors who are “supposedly” cut off from those in Florida are drinking coffee and having cookies? While I understand the majority of mankind has been killed or is now the undead, it just didn’t seem to make sense that these isolated survivors would have access to such luxuries. Then again, I had a hard time believing Florida still had helicopters that could not only still work, but were able to fly across country and still have enough fuel to get back. So in that aspect, I had to ignore my more logical side and try not to focus too heavily on some of the details. But besides that, I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.

Reviewer’s note: I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

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