Dead Tropics

Listen to the sample first!!! It's read with a regional access, slowed down for US audiences. You may like it, you may not.

The writing is good, if uninspired. The plot is thin. Zombie plague starts, good person takes early action, group of people go through a long series of running battles and brief hiding places until the end.

On the positive side, there are actual characters here, not cardboard cutouts. There's a reasonable attempt at making people into real people with motivations and thoughts. It's not Hemmingway, but this is a zombie book so what do you want?

The "rules" for zombies are fairly self consistent and the action isn't too unbelievable. It's not a bad romp. There is a very, very, small amount of romantic reference in the book but not enough that you'd need to keep young teens away from.

I've read ALOT of zombie novels and have started listening to them on Audible too (thank you Audible!) and this is one of the most engaging ones yet! Sue absolutely knows how to tell a story that grabs you from the beginning and takes you on a wild and wonderful ride through to the end. Her characters are likeable and she made me care what happened to them. I particularly like the heroine of her story, Lori, who is basically a Mom trying to save her family and is easily relatable. I've read so many zombie novels and horror novels in general that I'm not easily creeped out but there were places in this story that definitely made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and made me wonder if I really want to do housesitting out in the country by myself surrounded by way too many windows! I cared enough about the characters that there was also a part that had me desperately and discreetly wiping the tears out of my eyes before anyone could wonder why I was crying while I typed away on my keyboard doing mindless work. These are not your typical throw away characters who only serve the story as victims of the zombie hoards.

My only criticism was that the narrator could have used more emotion instead of at times sounding as if she was just reading to me, but she was very easy to understand and I did get used to her style as the book progressed.

Sue is a very gifted storyteller and I highly recommend this book and cannot wait until the sequel is released!

No I should have just gone to sleep

I couldn't even give the story a chance because Cynthia Barrett insisted on putting on awful and annoying Australian accents.

The whole thing

Maybe a re make of this one!!!!

It's not often I can't force myself to continue with a book but this was just too painful. I've been an audible listener for over two years and I'm okay with listening to a book that's only half got my attention but this was ridiculous. One non stop description of gore, unrealistic reactions from the 'normal' people and a narrator that spoke in a bizarre accent that was somewhere between New Zealand, Dutch, American and Australian. It hurt to listen to it. A cross between boring and unbelievable. I cannot believe this was published in any form. Flat characters (no substance) and grating narration. I don't think I could finish without being paid to do so.