Review: Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption by J.L. Murphey

Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption by J.L. Murphey

Published: August 7, 2011

Publisher: self pub

Pages: 147

Received: won from giveaway from author (signed copy)

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Dr. Donna Cairn is a genetics researcher for the Center of Disease Control. When the CDC issued the Zombie Apocalypse Alert, she discounted it as a way of advertising hurricane preparedness. When a conspiracy buff working with her in the silo speaks to her about the debunked Hapgood theory of Earth Crust Displacement, she again discounts it as just that some wacko, paranoid rambling. But when radiation levels after the Japanese earthquakes starting rising, all bets were off.
Simple dog bite patients are dying from a mysterious fever. Bodies start coming up missing from the morgues across the globe. When the death count reaches over one quarter of the world’s population dying due to this new plague, the CDC sends their best virologist, Kit Seger, to help Donna in her quest of finding the virus in her converted missile silo laboratory in Nebraska.
The dead have risen and hunger for human flesh. She never believed in zombies before, but now she believes in them. Can she and Kit find the cure before mankind becomes extinct? How do you cure people who are already dead? And better yet, how do you kill the dead?
Can it be that Donna’s unborn niece and nephew are the answer? With the earthquakes rumbling, zombies at the gate, and time running out will they find what they are looking for? Man can only hope.

This zombie story is probably the most realistic one I've read in a while. The things that happen in this book seem like they really could become a reality at some point - you know if zombies really happen. The one thing that is crazy to me is that this all started with dog bites, people getting bitten by ravaging stray dogs. And I actually loved hearing the zombies thinking process: for example one realized that if he eats brain matter from live people that his thinking process stays aware like his neurons are still firing and he can make decisions like a normal human, but it only lasts so long until he has to eat more brains. The other part I'm going to quote: 

"He tore another piece of flesh from the man's bare arm and swallowed. Warmth flooded his stomach and spread outwards... Too soon the temperature of the body fell and o longer gave the warth Eckerd's body craved."
-quoted from finished copy of Zombie Aplocalypse: Redemption (page 38)

The zombies themselves are interesting, but the relationships and changes in the humans lives is much more important and intriguing. The story itself is based around these underground silos that the government bought and now uses for testing facilities for the CDC. This is the one place where the few survivors of the facility have made home for the last year. They were able to collect enough data and samples to work on how the disease kills, how it mutates, and possibly workout a vaccine. There are only seven people in the facility two of which are doctors of some sort and then others are security and geologists.

Donna our heroine loses her brother to a zombie attack and brings his pregnant wife to the facility where she works to keep her safe and to monitor her. Sadly Victoria had some scratches on her that resulted from her trying to save her husband and she gets infected. Donna and her pals work around the clock for weeks trying to keep Victoria alive long enough to bring the babies into the world at the earliest possible time in order for them to survive. The exciting part is that Victoria stabilizes after the do an emergency C-section to get the distressed babies out of their fever wracked mother. And the most terrifying thing is the results after the babies birth - both creepy and amazing. 

Pretty much the rest of the book is the group learning to live together and cope with the fact that most of the population in the world is infected. Maybe one or two million people are left worldwide. Technically they should be able to live in this underground silo for many, many years. So I guess you will need to pick up a copy of this book to find out what happens to this crew of misfits. Will they survive, will the world change even more, will they find a vaccine? So many possibilities, but I don't want to give away the ending or many of the twists that happen in the story.

About the Author:

I am JoAnn Murphey. I live in the Golden Isles of Georgia.
In case you can not read the little voice bubble beside this-- it reads,  "Today is not just another day.  Today I will create something beautiful."
I am a free-lance writer, author, and minister. Married with four children and eight grandchildren. I spend a a big chunk of my free time helping other writers accomplish their dreams.

Currently I've entered the 21st century trying my hand at e-publishing and internet social marketing. Although I have a degree in marketing the internet, at the time of my degree, the internet was in its infancy...so I'm back in college learning all the new fangled things associated with the internet.
I have self and e-published titles. I write under several names... J.L. Murphey/Jolee Morriss/ Grandma Jam. Writing suspense is the mainstay of my writing whether it is children's, southern fiction, espionage, or horror.  I have five more completed manuscripts which I haven't decided what to do with yet and seven more in the works in progress stage. So stay tuned. My followers and a few others will be the only ones who know I'm writing it all...unless of course, you read the copyright information on the first page of the books.

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