LOST WORLD by Kate L Mary

4.2 out of 5 stars

Zombie apocalypse

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

Book 4 in the Broken World series ~ a bit better than 4 stars but not quite 4.5!

So many of the reviews for this series say that Kate Mary has borrowed much from The Walking Dead that I won't point out all the similarities; I thought at first that we had a guest appearance of Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, too, aka Brady, the educated, articulate dwarf who can beat a man twice his size with verbal arrows, but he didn't turn out to be him after all, about which I was pleased!  But is Hope Springs as sinister as whatever-The-Governor's-community-was-called?  We will have to wait until Book 5 to find out!

Something the less positive reviews have failed to point out, though, is that there is a hell of a lot in this series that isn't TWD.  Daryl Dixon might be Ms Mary's ideal, but Axl in the Broken World series is very much his own man.  There are plenty of characters and situations that are the author's own invention, and very good they are too.  The love stuff isn't over the top in any of the books and the (very occasional) sexy bits aren't smut-for-the-sake-of-it, they're just real.  These books are not about zombies, they're about people.  And people fall in love, get jealous, feel insecure, argue - and do sex.  Vivian and Axl's relationship is too believable, too down to earth, for a moonlit kiss fading to asterisks!

 It never isn't a good time for a picture of Daryl Dixon...

 

I was disappointed not to have chapters from Axl's POV in this one, as in Book 3, but Hadley's story was a good diversion from the main one, and her 'voice' very different from Vivian's.  I enjoyed this book very much, and the scene at the end when we nearly lost a main character is terrific, so well done, the best I've read in these books so far.  The dialogue is great, the characters clear and easily identifiable, all the way through.

The Broken World series is not great literature, it's popular, easy read fiction, but that requires as much storytelling talent as any other sort, and Kate Mary has this in spades.  

Recommended for any fellow lovers of this genre, and I can't wait to read New World when it comes out in the summer!

Book 1, Broken World is reviewed HERE, with links to my reviews of books 2 & 3