Fighting Zombies at Sea: Waves Take Your Bones is a captivating tale of survival against zombies

 

Waves Take Your Bones (Children of the Sea and Sky, Book 1)

Athena Giles

Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 2025

ISBN: 978-1-960247-43-8

Ebook, 307 ppg.

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I selected this book to read as research for an article, but even after I got the information I needed, I was hooked.

 

Waves Take Your Bones by Athena Giles is the first book in the NA fantasy adventure series, Children of the Sea and Sky. This is a story about Tallis and Finn, best friends who plan to join the naval fleet and fight the monstrous Shriekers (what we know of as zombies). Before they can enlist, the Shriekers attack their village, killing almost all of their families. They manage to escape, Tallis with two siblings, but they are split up from the retreating villagers. Tallis and Finn must find a way to escape from their village, and that is only the beginning of their many adventures. 

 

I absolutely LOVED this story! I don’t read a lot of New Adult fiction, but this story really pulled me in! Tallis and Finn are brave, compassionate characters and their friendship is endearing.

 

The Shriekers may have been zombies, but they are not like zombies as we know them. These types of zombies cannot really function too well in daylight, and they are known for their shrieking screams — thus why they are called “Shriekers.” They are definitely scary creatures and apparently capable fighters, as they overtake many people they encounter. They also somehow manage to figure out how to sail ships, which puts Tallis and Finn into more danger later on in the story.

 

The scene with the Nightmare Bridge was really creepy! No wonder people feared crossing it. I thought it was just a bridge, but it certainly is not! It is the stuff of nightmares, and appropriately named! The visions which both of the characters see while crossing this bridge haunts them in the rest of the story and readers are left guessing if all of those visions just might be prophetic.

 

While Tallis and Finn have a good friendship and maybe they have romantic feelings for each other, they are opposites. Tallis is independent and ambitious, while Finn is clingy and has a hard time moving away from the past. Granted, Tallis is stronger and braver than Finn, but he has a hard time being able to adjust to change. I was irritated with how, when Tallis gets a promotion, Finn tries to talk her out of it and hold her back. It’s like he feels threatened by her moving on with her life. She reminds him she has no home and no village to go back to, and that this could be a good thing in creating a new life for herself and her siblings, but Finn is moody about it, sulks and pulls away from her. 

 

But it would seem that change was on the horizon for both of them. In all that they go through in this story, it changes them and makes them stronger. It makes their friendship stronger too. I was pleased to see that their friendship survives a lot of hurdles, even distance, and that they are able to move past squabbles and issues they’ve had to deal with before.

 

This whole story was quite a read! The book was hard to put down and each new chapter kept me guessing about what was going to happen next. The ending was really sad but also beautiful. 

 

Waves Take Your Bones is a high-seas adventure story of humans fighting zombies. With intense fight scenes, nautical dangers and terrifying enemies, it’s a story fans of adventures and zombie stories are sure to love. Well-written and craftily plotted, this novel offers a seafaring twist on the zombie story where the fight for survival takes place on the roaring waves of the sea.

 

 

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: I downloaded this story to read as part of my Kindle Unlimited subscription and this review is entirely voluntary.

Undead Toys: Zombie Ducks is a horrific and terrifying tale of zombie toys going on a murder spree

 

Zombie Ducks

Candace Nola

Uncomfortably Dark Horror, 2024
Ebook, 40 ppg.

ISBN-13: 979-8324675134

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A neighborhood is being attacked by zombies! Whether believable or not, the zombies are coming – and not just zombie people, but also zombie toys! That’s what readers can expect from Zombie Ducks by Candace Nola, an extreme horror novelette that will have both adults and kids trying to escape with their lives.

Before I started reading this book, I had no idea what to expect. From the title and cover, I thought, Ok, zombie rubber duckies. What harm could there be?

I was surprised to find out!

Candace Nola takes the beloved bath toy and turns it into a zombie in this extreme horror story, Zombie Ducks. Told from the POV of 6-year-old Kane, this was a cute story to read.

And I say “cute” because Kane is cute in how he decides to fight back against zombies that are attacking his neighborhood.

Yes, zombies. Those undead creatures we see in movies and read about in stories.

Except for Kane, fiction becomes reality!

How zombies happened after a huge chemical plant explosion is explained, so it’s acceptable that there are zombies in this story.

But what’s horrifying is that not only are people infected, but so are toys! Even pool toys!

Even the toys left in a kid’s backyard. Like a dodgeball.

But get this: Not only are the toys zombified, they are also enhanced to have real sharp teeth and they grow huge!

So Kane is a little shocked when he sees a bunch of ginormous dodgeballs kill one of his neighbors.

“Ball after ball slammed into the man. Kane heard bones snapping, the squelch of wet flesh, and saw sprays of blood. He heard the old man whimpering as he begged for it to stop. Kane was horrified and fascinated at the same time. Death by dodgeball didn’t seem like a good way for anyone to die.”

Yikes! No kidding! I still cringe when thinking of the days I endured the torture of dodgeball in school!

So, toys are attacking people. And so of course, Kane thinks he should fight toys with toys.

Specifically, his army of rubber duckies.

But after the rubber duckies are zombified, they grow HUGE! With sharp teeth!

Of course, this terrifies Kane, but he forces himself to be brave, taking on the role of a sergeant as he commands his army of zombie rubber duckies to fight the zombies!

The neighborhood is under attack! And it’s up to Kane and his army of zombie rubber duckies to save the day!

 

Zombie Ducks is a surprising, horrifying tale of zombie toys fighting other zombie toys. A terrifying tale filled with horror and gore, this story was an entertaining and frightening read.

 

 

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: This review is completely voluntary. I downloaded this ebook for free with my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

A Fight for Survival Against Two Monsters: The Only Safe Place Left is The Dark is a LGBTQ spin on the zombie apocalypse story

 

The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark

Warren Wagner

Ghoulish Books, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-943720-86-6

Ebook, 100 ppg.

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Imagine a world where being HIV-positive is a blessing, not a curse. That’s how it is for Quinton and Billy, two HIV-positive gay men who fight zombies. In The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark by Warren Wagner, the world has gone to the dumps after a zombie plague sets in. Most people are either dead or zombies, while other people still alive are either monsters or survivors. That’s the world we have set up for us in this novella, and it’s a world where readers will constantly asking themselves: Who will live in the end?

 

The first chapter’s ending REALLY made me angry. I was so angry by what happened that I almost didn’t finish reading the rest of the book. But I did, only out of curiosity. But because the story was so good and awesome things happened, I kept reading!

 

This book is amazing. I loved it! I was especially surprised to learn that this was the author’s debut novella. It is so well-written! Yes, it’s a story of survival and how the world changed, and people changed, after the zombie apocalypse happened, but it’s also a story about love, friendship, loss, loyalty and compassion. That’s a lot to deliver coming from a horror novel, but those themes are indeed in the story, which really made it stand out.

 

Both Quinton and Billy have lost their partners, and I appreciated how we got to learn more about the man who Billy loved at some point in the story. Readers do get to know about Quinton’s lost partner, Frankie, through flashbacks and dreams in the story, but we also learn more about Billy’s late partner. This was a touching scene to read.

 

All of the things these two men go through are really frightening, but it brings them together. They survive so much, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to keep them apart. They got each other’s back. They have saved each other’s lives. It creates a bond for them which changes both their lives.

 

The title had me wondering if the “dark” represented something more than just darkness, as in, staying in the cover of darkness. If you stayed in the cover of darkness, the enemy cannot see you. In Quinton and Billy’s case, the enemy could be a batch of sorts: Zombies, homophobes, religious freaks out to “cleanse” the world (read: kill people) in God’s light, doing so by eliminating the weak and sinful.

 

Sure, that’s no way to live. Always in the dark. Always running, hiding and trying to survive. But that’s the world these two men are thrown into. As Quinton realizes at one point, “They lived for those they lost. Until they could live for themselves again.” (Pg. 83)

 

The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark is an unusual zombie apocalypse story of two gay men fighting for their lives and trying to survive a worst thing than being HIV-positive. Once I got past the horrors of the first chapter, it became a story that was hard for me to put down. It’s a story that brought new insights to my mind and made me think about just how far a person can go in trying to hold on to what kind of life they have left to live after losing everything and everyone in a chaotic world. Hopefully, some good can still be found in it.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.