Kevin A. Muñoz

Stand Your Post, Soldier! This was an excellent story in the vein of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but... you know, actually good! But it *did* remind me of that bleak, depressing world McCarthy created. This book simply tells a far superior story of zombies and lesbians and a horrifying secret being kept by some people in a town that has come together over the years after the zombies took over the world. This is one of those books that tells a complete tale but leaves a sequel open and ready, and I for one am hoping we get it.… (més)

Sam Edison is the Chief of Police in Little Five, a small post apocalypse town in Georgia. One day a man arrives with a teen girl who is very pregnant. The girl is obviously traumatized. The people of Little five take them in and give them a home. When they both get murdered, the Chief intends to find out why.

While the Chief is busy trying to figure out what happened, the Mayor's step daughter gets kidnapped. The Chief goes after her with two others. They must get past the Shriekers and the Hollow-heads in order to find the girl. This is no easy task. Nor is finding shelter and transportation along the way.

I can't say more without leaving spoilers, just know that sometimes, the monsters aren't the worst things out there.… (més)

The Post by Kevin Munoz is a dystopian suspense novel set in rural Georgia. The novel is set in the not so distant future and focuses in on a community known as the the Little Five. Society has collapsed after an unknown virus has taken out 90 percent of the world’s human population. There are now 2 primary groups of living humans in this new future. Regular humans, and zombiefied humans who thirst for flesh, who are known as hollow heads.

Sam serves as the chief law enforcement officer in the Little Five. She is in charge of a small group of deputies and she manages the safety and order of the small community. Sam has definitely suffered considerably since society collapsed, and she lost her daughter and her wife. She feels compelled to protect and serve those in the community to atone in some way for those she has lost.

The Little Five is accustomed to taking in random survivors who come up to the border fence, so when 2 wanderers named Owen and Abigail show up at the fence asking for help, Sam accepts them freely. She allows them to stay in the Little Five so they can at least get back on their feet. The relative peace of the Little Five is shattered when the two wandering strangers are attacked and killed one night. It is clear they were ambushed from within, and the sanctity of the Little Five is thrown into question. Things deteriorate further when a trap is set by a mystery character that brings hordes of hollow heads to the doors of the Little Five. It soon becomes apparent that the hollow head trap was set to abduct the 16 year old step daughter of the town mayor, Phoebe. Sam cannot let Phoebe go, and she vows to hunt down Phoebe’s abductors.

I was not really sure at first where this story was headed, and it had a feel reminiscent of Walking Dead in some ways. I might be somewhat jaded, but I initially thought the character of Sam was male. It isn’t revealed till later that she is female, which kind of made her more interesting. She is a strong, fierce character who has a strong moral fiber despite spending years living in a altered reality where the lines between right and wrong have visibly blurred, and the survivors have had to invent new and novel ways to survive. The story does gather steam quickly, and I was interested in finding out what happens to the main players in the story. The story does have a plot twist in it that keep things unexpected and interesting. I am curious to see if there more adventures for this character. Novel provided by Netgalley.… (més)