Savage by Iain Rob Wright

Anna (from Ravage) has escaped with Rene and they are now “safe” on a pier. Their journey from there to here is never fully explained which is a shame as they have both clearly become changed characters and also have a bond between them.

Garfield, is the new enigmatic wanderer who forages for supplies but has found his salvation in Poppy a child with an awful past.

Throw in a few other misfit characters and I wondered how they survived the first few days of the apocalypse let alone a few weeks/months and you have the new community.  Not forgetting the poor “fish man” who comes late to the party and is a very sad moment all around.

On the horizon is the Kirkland ship with Samuel (from Sam) as captain and Damian/Roman (Housemates & The Final Winter) as the reinvented good vs bad character, but he still holds a great love for Harry (Final Winter).

A bit repetitive and the PoVs were a bit off occasionally in my opinion.

Damien seemed to swing between personas with no real moral compass which was really irritating as thought he found himself in Housemates.

Not one of my favourite IRW  books which is a real shame as he is tying up all the loose ends of his characters, even the Sea-Sick novel only makes a very brief, albeit, clever appearance.

I got a bit annoyed at the army break in situation, what was with all the hidden weapons, surely they would have been frisked by trained army men!!

Many of the random/odd characters felt like filler or fodder for me with some very cliché moments.

There are some very sad and dramatic deaths.  The occasional humour moments were really laugh out loud and unexpected.

If IRWs intention was to wrap up this set of characters he sort of did but I felt there is more to this story and really wanted a definitive ending.

All that negative stuff said, it was a gripping read and as always IRW treats you to complex story lines that demand your attention, the gore is plenty and the plot is hard hitting.

Savage