Aftertime

Aftertime
Sophie Littlefield
384 pages
Publisher: Luna (a division of Harlequin)
Source: library
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Zombies - this is the main problem everyone faces now that the gas has run out and government and communication has shut down.  But Cass has an even bigger problem: she was abducted by the zombies and now that she's back, awake, and recovering, she has to find her three-year-old daughter.

Cass's adventure in Aftertime took her to several different places and introduced us to a diverse cast of characters.  When she stumbles upon a community of survivors, she's assigned Smoke, a man who will take her to her daughter, but when her daughter isn't where she should be, Smoke continues on with her and a hint of a romance develops.  Along the way they meet several other people who are trying to survive, everything from one guy holed up in his own house still, to a stadium filled with women.

I appreciated the flashbacks of memories Cass had during the novel - I think it really added that something extra to the story line, allowing us to get a better glimpse of who Cass really is, the events in her past that shaped her and how they are affecting her today.

What I loved about this book: there was no major cliffhanger!  Sure I got the general sense that this story will continue and there's more to it, but it didn't end in that annoying fashion like, "The guard's hand clasped around her neck and... stay tuned for the next book!"  This was a relief because my library doesn't have the second book and there is a wait list at PaperBackSwap.  Rebirth is definitely on my must read as soon as I can list, though.

Four stars!  Book one blew me away and I loved it a lot more than I thought I was going to.  I highly recommend to post-apocolyptic and dystopian fans (there were elements of both in this novel) but be forewarned, this book is not YA - there are graphic sex scenes and a lot of grotesque, flesh-eating violence.  Aftertime is not for the fainthearted but still very enjoyable.