exlibrislarsen

I had the pleasure of reading LOOSE ENDS, the debut novel from author Jay Wilburn and have reviewed it for THE HORROR ZINE.

LOOSE ENDS by Jay Wilburn now available from Hazardous Press.

A good title invites you in, hopefully, to an equally good story. Jay Wilburn’s debut novel, LOOSE ENDS (263 pp., Hazardous Press), is a novel about survivors living in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested wasteland, but before you decide that you’ve read this book before, take another look at the title. It doesn’t say ‘zombie.’ It doesn’t say ‘dead.’ And there’s a reason for that. The people are the story. The living people.

There aren’t that many left, and they aren’t special forces, rock stars, or brain surgeons, either. They’re just three cooks and a mute boy who have been surviving zombie hordes and raider attacks for about ten years and find themselves with no one to cook for anymore. So they decide to find a new place to live.

I often take issue with horror stories in which the characters put themselves at grave risk (usually in the third act, but not always) to keep the excitement up. Chef, Short Order, Doc, and Mutt leave because there’s nothing left for them where they are. Its a genuine, human motivation–believable and real. They go together, and they do it as safely as they can. The dangers they face are unavoidable. Every twist and turn is earned…

Read the rest of the review here.

This entry was posted on October 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.