Plague Town by Dana Fredsti

Poor Maggie is a normal Mum and housewife who tries to ensure the safety and care of her family, then she must witness their harsh deaths and change into the undead, and so begins the plague.

Dana Fredsti has a real down to earth, tongue in cheek humour in her writing that I couldn’t help giggling at even with the grossest of subjects spewing out at me.

DF is clever in her explanation of why our heroine misses her fatal flu bug jab, and this route of infection is often, but never directly, implicated.

Totally love Ashley; she has depth and a reality charm to her. Finally some needs to piddle during the zompoc!!!

The other characters are plausible if a little cliché but then this is fiction, zombie apocalyptic fiction, and needs its main stay characters! But DF puts her own little feminine swing on them.

Professor Simone Fraser, the kick ass matriarch with a secret past that knows all about pandemics.  Gabriel the totally gorgeous military dude with another secret! Nathan the secret loner/ex-military/extreme survivor was, for me, fantastic. His way of living is how I spend my day dreams planning.  All I will say about general Heald is what an asshat! You have to have a character you love to hate.

 I enjoyed the little interspersed zombie PoVs it really added a different dimension, and brought a quality to it which I thought made the zompoc “human” and not just some throwaway function for gore, splatter and horror. DF made her victims real.

The little geek killing squad are some eclectic characters and I really started to bond with them, so I hope that the next book gives a bit more history on them or at the very least expands their relationships with each other more.

The secret society element and historical explanations were unique (to me) and I thought a really good edge and underpinning storyline, so I hope this continues to further books in the series.

Finally a zombie writer that likes, no LOVES cats!! Go to the top of fav’ author list! Yes I’m fickle.

The movie references were far from out of date, soon to be forgotten pop culture references as suggested by other reviews. I found that the movies quoted fit with the story line, gave a good grin and are actually now classic movies, not mere whims of the author and flashes of her (factual) past.

Focusing on a small town gave it an intimate feel which changed dramatically with the ending and gave a brilliant cliff hanger and total jaw dropper moment – glad there is the next book (Plague Nation) to jump straight into (although compared to other indie authors I do find the price a little high, but possibly worth it).

I should probably not comment about the female author and her excellent weaponry knowledge and fight sequences but I will. She does not over egg but allows for enough information to be interesting without boring me to death with ammo knowledge. Her real life is an amazing adventure according to her bio’ and this shines through with her brilliant descriptions of sword play and choice of weapons.

Over all I really enjoyed the protagonist being a feisty woman, not many authors go that way but personally I think woman are better equipped at surviving mentally and physically, if only our need for cuddles and sex didn’t get in the way! But this is fiction and supposed to be fun and escapism.

DF certainly ensures you get your giggles with your gore in this novel. Make sure you check out her novella “Mans Gotta Eat”, which introduced me to this talented author.

Plague Town

A Man's Gotta Eat What A Man's Gotta Eat by Dana Fredsti

Chuck T-Bone is one of the undead but he does not let that or his decaying flesh get in the way of being a good Private detective.

Told in the first person I could almost touch and taste the film noir texture of this story. It is cleverly done with just a dash of tongue in cheek to stop it being cringe worthy.

There was so much humour I was giggling as much as grimacing at the many gross, yet funny descriptions.

My favourite paragraph occurred when the “broad” walks in to the office with a job for our undead PI and DF manages to combine the usual drop dead gorgeous body mental visual into something with a bit more dead!

The front story is really intense and engrossing keeping you reading to the finale, but the underlying back story of how the world has become zombiefied is left to the imagination with mere hints, which works really well.

The ending is so cracking I did a snort out loud.

As a character I found Chuck T-Bone to be brilliant and I really hope that DF can expand this into a short story series as I feel she certainly has the talent to keep me hooked on reading her.

Mans Gotta Eat