Friday, October 4, 2013

Review: One Thousand and One Nights by Ruth Browne @NetGalley @entangledpub


One Thousand and One Nights by Ruth Browne
Publication date: September 30th, 2013
Pages: 68

Synopsis:
Sheri spends her days fighting zombies and her nights chained to a wall, earning her every breath by telling stories to her captor Aleksy--stories that make them both forget the ruined world. Sheri could put up with the conditions--at least she knows her sister is safe in the community Aleksy leads--until she realizes she's falling for him... even though he wants her dead. When Aleksy allowed Sheri and her sister into his compound, he didn't know about the zombie bite on her back. It's only a matter of time before she turns into one of the rising dead and threatens their existence, but Aleksy has a secret need for Sheri and her stories. For everyone's safety, he chains her to his bedroom wall, hoping for just one more day. But how long will the community allow Aleksy to ignore his own rule: always kill the infected. Always.


Available at:


Review:
I received an e-copy of this book from the publishers at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

While perusing the vast selection of NetGalley ebooks available for me to read, I stumbled across this gem. Anything zombie-esk makes me want to read it. I have a worrisome obsession with zombies and will read virtually anything within the genre. I did not even get through the first sentence of the synopsis before I requested it. All I had to see was the word 'zombies' and I was done for. I didn't realize that the book was so short though. A meager 68 pages to sate my appetite for zombie literature.

Sheri's story opens on her out in a dusty old library scavenging for books for some unknown reason. She confronts some of the undead and barely escapes without being ripped to shreds. She comes back to the compound where you would expect her to be welcomed back with open arms by the other survivors. Instead we find Sheri chained and shackled upon her arrival. We soon find out that Sheri is virtually a prisoner in her survivors camp. She is only spared death by reading to the handsome "King" of the camp while bound to the wall of his bedroom. She was content to read stories to Aleksy, but she was uneasily reminded that Stockholm syndrome was alive and well and she was a helpless victim of it. She was falling for Aleksy despite her bonds and he, in turn, was fighting similar emotions.

This book is so short that I really can't go much more into the description without basically giving away the entire thing. I don't normally read short stories or novellas such as this book because I found myself dying for more. More detail, more turmoil, more sex, more violence, more of everything that you would want of a good paranormal romance. Instead it cuts off at the end and I found myself almost suspended in a world with no closure. It makes me feel bitter and ravenous for another tidbit from the author's imagination.

I really enjoyed this book, I just wish it had been longer. I think that there could have been so many other interesting developments that could be made in the story. But based on what was presented to me, I give it an appeased thumbs-up.

One Thousand and One Nights draws its readers into a post-apocalyptic world where fear is second nature and love is a rarity not to be overlooked.