This review was originally posted on Bookish Things & More ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: Saving the world is hard enough with out the Zombies but Sarah and Dave are going to accomplish both.

Opening Sentence: We call it Middle-of-Nowhere, Montana.

The Review:

I was trepidatious about starting this book because the concept of zombies and romance was a tough pill to swallow. There are so many themes I don’t even blink an eye at when thrown into a romance but for some reason this concept was totally ICK for me, but Ms. Petersen made me into a Zombie believer.

This story is the final in this series and I went into this book with no knowledge of previous actions, repercussions and results, but the story didn’t suffer from my lack of knowledge. Great props to Ms. Petersen for crafting a story that I could jump into in the final act and truly enjoy. There are moments that are obviously harking back to a previous incident, but as a reader they are more signs than dissertations that would have left me confused or just rushing to complete this book.

Our story picks up with Dave and Sarah who have struggled to get to Montana to escape the apocalypse, zombies and people seeking to capture Dave. You learn very early in the story that Dave has become a human that has zombie characteristics but functions like a normal person. This twist on Zombie-ism was an enjoyable morsel of this story. That Dave has extra strength, smells brains and can walk amongst Zombies and not be injured is part of the charm.

Now, Sarah is a snarky lady who is seeking to protect her family and for that I get her and her motivations. This is a woman who can shoot quips and isn’t afraid to take down a horde of zombies with barely a blink of her eye, but loves her husband dearly. Heck, I would so have her cover my back in a Zombie Apocolypse and know that she will get the job done.

During the course of Dave and Sarah’s journey we meet a number of different characters that were featured in the other books such as Nicole Nessing and Robbie “The Kid”. The shared history between these characters plays out and even for someone that jumped in at the final portion of the play, I was able to enjoy the sharp and sometimes pointed moments that were lived through by Dave and Sarah.

So what do I think of this book? It is a well crafted piece of fiction. I truly think it would have been that much better reading experience if I had the history and character development, but I thought it was a great afternoon read. I would suggest that if this review piques your interest that you would be doing yourself and the story a disservice not to start at book 1, Married With Zombies.

Notable Scene:

I nodded. “I get that. So was he the one who died?”

She hesitated. “Yeah. Well, got turned.”

I flinched. That was worse. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I headed for Vegas at first, hoping to find my sister, but that didn’t work, obviously. Then I wanted to get to the East Coast and my parents, but…well, there aren’t many ways to get across that wall, are there? So I ended up back here. Like a salmon.”

I laughed at the image, but said, “Go with a homing pigeon.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because salmon die once they return to their home stream and spawn.”

“Ah.” She saluted me. “Gotcha.”

FTC Advisory: IGLA provided me with a copy of The Zombie Whisperer. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Sarah and Dave have managed to find a safe place – inasmuch as anything is safe after a zombie apocalypse. They’re hold up, isolated, capable of defending themselves and well stocked up to face the coming year. They’ve even come to terms with Dave’s half-zombie nature and use it to their full advantage. The only problem is Sarah’s growing restlessness. After months of constant fighting for survival, the quietness of their lives is wearing on her.

That, and the fact she is pregnant. And, with Dave the father, who knows how much of the baby is human and how much of it is zombie?

But visitors arrive with that rarest of commodity, hope. A chance, maybe to cure the zombie plagues, a chance to put the zombies down, a chance to restore the world to what it was. A chance that rests on Sarah and Dave – but it’s a chance that requires them to trust these people. And if there’s one thing the zombie apocalypse has been very clear on, it’s that there are very very few people out there you can trust.

One thing I’ve always loved about this series is that it’s fun. It’s funny, it has a lot of lightness about it, it has a lot of snark about it. Yet it manages to balance that level of snark and fun with a full sense of the dystopia and fear that comes with it. Yes, the parties are getting a little more blasé about the whole zombie killing thing given how long they’ve been doing this, but there’s still always that edge of fear and worry. We have the dystopia, we have the end of the world feeling even while keeping that lightness and that fun about it. In this book it’s less due to the horrors of the zombies and far more down to the horrors of seeing their home, Seattle, in ruins and seeing what the zombie apocalypse has done to it. We have the wonderful combination of the heavy, dark emotion, the painful realisations that come with dystopia, the light and snarky fun and humour and the character growth with their loving, but not always smooth interactions and development as a couple. All three together in a wonderful combination. We even had a nod to the tragedy of what the zombies were – not just walking, empty monsters, but people, reanimated cruelly and driven by hunger and rage and pain.

I was also impressed by Sarah and Dave’s interaction with the army guys. They are suspicious with good reason – one of the staples of this series and dystopians in general is that when law and order breaks down, people can become even more dangerous than the zombies. But that suspicion never completely overpowered common sense. It was well maintained, their trust is not easily for sale, but they could also be reached. It was, again, well balanced and very relatable.

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