Favorite Quote: “We were surviving, but everyday felt less like living .”

A virus is sweeping the nation, pitting man against man. When a small group of people find themselves at the same abandoned farm house, their fates become intertwined and their survival depends on one another. A woman looking for her daughters, a man trying to protect his only child, and a teenager and her friends trying to survive all find themselves pushed to the brink and forced to do things to that will either make them stronger…or destroy them in the end.

I’m going to tell you all a secret. I’m not a huge fan of Zombie genre or post apocalyptic books. The whole “eating your face” off and surviving the end of the world scenarios just don’t do it for me. Luckily for me though, while McGuire’s Red Hill is a zombie apocalyptic novel, it is more character driven and the focus is narrowed to the emotional and mental journeys our protagonists face.

Red Hill is told by three characters. Nathan, a father whose disagreeable wife leaves him the day of the outbreak. Scarlett, a divorcee whose so tired of being strong finds herself with untapped reserves when she can’t find her children. Miranda, a teenager who is struggling to make it to their father’s ranch-Red Hill. Though one would think a story told by three protagonists would become confusing, McGuire uses a deft hand in merging each voice, creating an evenly maintained engaging flow of conversation and action. Some chapters run concurrent, allowing us to see certain situations from multiple viewpoints. Steady pacing and a well written engaging story keeps the readers attention as we tag along with our characters into the unknown.

The story reveals itself slowly, introducing our characters and their back stories against the backdrop of pandemonium. No one is sure exactly what is happening as the news reports are frantic with half truths and pieces of information. As the hospitals fill, people begins to panic and chaos reigns. It’s always interesting to read about these scenarios and wonder how you would react in the face of something like this. Would you stay cool and focused or would you panic? Will you be a hero and help your fellow man or will you look out only for yourself? McGuire addresses this and more in the development of her characters dialogue and actions. One aspect I enjoyed was the honesty McGuire forces into her characters. While everyone would love to be hero and act above the board, we can’t negate the everyday emotions that make up our humanity.  Love, lust, fear, anger, and selfishness exist and will always be a prevalent force no matter the situation we are in.

“You shouldn’t have let her go,” I snapped. “Everyone we love is out there.”
Nathan’s worried eyes softened as he looked down at his daughter. “How could I argue with her when I would do the same?”

 

 

Romance isn’t the focus, a strong undercurrent of love flows through the story. Family takes on new definitions as these people begin to form attachment bonds with one another. McGuire examines new and old relationships and the causes and effects behind them. How realistic is it to cling to relationships that existed before the outbreak? How long do you grieve for those you loss during the outbreak? Each person in here experiences a loss and the emotional toll manifests in each of them differently. What makes one relationship more important than another during these unsure times? Attraction runs rampant through here but the reasons for each go further than just the basic human need of protection and procreation. We have to ask ourselves…is it the beginning of love or just the effects of their situation? Our characters are forced to acknowledge and answer these questions and more as the situation at Red Hill becomes more volatile.

The ending is bittersweet as some see their prayers are answered and others see their dreams crushed. Though it isn’t necessarily a traditional happy ending, it’s a respectable one and it keeps in sync with the premise story. Red Hill isn’t your typical zombie story but it’s engaging narrative is sure to appeal to both horror and contemporary fans alike.

Rating: B

WHAT!

Need book 2 NOW!

Iron's Prophecy (Iron Fey Series) 

Meghan Chase is finally getting used to being the Iron Queen, ruler of the Iron Fey. Her life may be strange, but with former Winter prince Ash by her side at last, she wouldn't have it any other way.

But when they travel to the Summer and Winter courts' gathering for Elysium, the oracle from Meghan's past returns with a dire prophecy: "What you carry will either unite the courts, or it will destroy them."

Now Meghan faces a devastating choice that may determine the future of all fey—and her and Ash's unborn child….

A novella from Julie Kagawa's bestselling Iron Fey series.

Kindle

Nook

After what Kaia said I went ahead to check out who's on the list... I must say I didn't see that one coming.

Guess what? That's right! Yours truly!

On the top of your homepage you’ll notice your navigation bar.

This will bring up your Settings page.

Now Scroll down a bit until you see this:

That’s going to bring up the template customization page. In the upper left hand corner, you’ll see this:

Once that is done, beneath the above posted menu you can scroll down. Do so until you find this:

DON’T FORGET TO CLICK SAVE!!!

Now comes the fun part, making that image static. Click on the Edit HTML button.

This is going to split your screen, with your blog showing below and the code window at the top. Don’t freak out. Scroll down through the code until you find these lines:

Now, where you see the green word ‘repeat’, replace that with ‘fixed’. It should now look like this:

DON’T FORGET TO HIT SAVE!

Okay, so as you’ll notice in the screenshot above there’s a drop down menu with the word Blog selected. In order to assure that your background is fixed for all your pages you have to select that drop down and repeat the code change for each one listed:

DON’T FORGET TO HIT SAVE FOR EACH ONE!!!

Good luck, everyone. Hope this helps! 

In this post I'm going to show you how to change the Followers and Following sections on your pages into something creative like Minions and Masters. 

Note from Mike Mullin: "There are a lot of good points in this post, and as an author, I agree. I'll just add that I appreciate reviewers who keep their reviews focused on whatever aspects of the author are relevant to her/his books. I've seen reviews critical of the author's weight, clothing, or hairstyle, which I find mean and ridiculous. Usually those type of "reviews" are directed at female authors, which also bugs me."

A lot of you read this blog because you are friends with me on GoodReads.  Heck, I get more feedback about the blog from that website than I do on the actual blog.  But I'll be distancing myself from the site.  That doesn't mean I'll be gone, but due to recent policy changes I will be posting full reviews only on the blog and on Booklikes.

What policy changes are these?

Well, to put it bluntly GoodReads is now deleting shelves and reviews that aren't about the contents of book.  Well, sort of.  To put it more precisely they're deleting anything that regards bad author behavior.  If you five star a book because OMG it's the bestest most awesomest author ever and give it five stars, you're probably okay.

Look, I get it, GoodReads you're involved with Amazon now and want to sell books especially books that are published via Amazon.  Which sad to say a lot of the bad author behavior derives from self pubs who publish a lot of the time through only Amazon.  But at the same time, the site has been marketed since it's introduction as a site for readers.  And to tell me I can't review a book based on author behavior is making me question my English degree since about seventy-five percent of the term papers I wrote had to do with authors and their views on society.

Also, I guess it would make my senior thesis on female empowerment in literature invalid too since I cited Charlotte Bronte's comments on Jane Austen.  OMG Charlotte Bronte's talking about the actual author got to delete that review.

But author behavior isn't related to books you claim....

Well, put it through this perspective would you hire a painter to paint your house who cussed out your friend, told them that they didn't know what they were talking about when said friend claimed they didn't like the job they did.

Heck no.

Said friend would probably call their superior or at least leave a scathing review on Angie's List or whatever and that would be fine.  In fact, if there was a superior it probably would be appreciated for improvement purposes.

Case in point, in March I had a terrible experience at a local Starbucks.  The barista was downright rude to me.  She claimed they were out of a syrup when the syrup was right in front of her.  And proceeded to act like I was stupid when I asked her to add extra hazelnut syrup in my mocha.   I called the company about that.  And you know what, calling to complain about a bad employee was just as valid as complaining about a bad cup of coffee.  So much, I got three free beverages from the company.  And yeah, I continue to buy coffee from Starbucks today. 

The point I'm trying to make here, is authors do play a role in how we view there books and that extends to their behavior outside of the book.  Look at literary theory.  The postmodern trend is towards new historicism which looks at outside interferences of the work.  Current events, the author's life, figures in their life, etc. are all fair game when it comes to analyzing the book.   The fat that the author can't take criticism is actually a valid point when analyzing work in the academic setting.  Not to mention in the consumer setting, you sort of want to know what your'e getting into especially if you're a young  blogger who doesn't want to get harassed.

And really how can you not review the author?  When I review I don't judge the writer I'm reviewing but I do notice their quirks.  Case in point, Meg Cabot loves to use quirky protagonists from the midwest.  Jennifer L Armentrout (who has an awesome article on some other policies GR has decided to enact)  likes to have a tough girl main character.  Tera Lynn Childs is the queen of fluff.  PC and Kristin Cast like using tropes to the max degree and then some.  I feel like these are the sorts of things that should be mentioned in a review and how the author utilizes their quirks in their latest project. 

And yes, I get marking a book on a list for author behavior and then writing something like: I'm not going to read this book  by Meanie Author because she harassed reviewers, has horrible grammar, it's p2p fiction, and spams people isn't the same thing as calling out author quirks, but as I stated before these reviews serve a purpose for the person shelving the book and as an advisory notice for someone who might not want to read a book.  And it's also used as a cataloging tool too.

Furthermore, I hate the fact that there are some people claiming that think reviewing a book like this is slander or libel or any sort of defamation.  First of all, slander is spoken not written.  And then.....you know what, I'm not even going to get into a discussion of what libel is for dummies.  Internet lawyers just need to go to law school if they want to discuss the law.  I'm sure that their torts professor will terrorize them and then some and then they'll shut up.

Anyway, I've said my peace and am getting off my soapbox now.  Harriet Klausner just needs to come over already and become GR's number one reader because that, my friends, is where the site is headed.