Dead Yet Alive?!

How many of us are just going through the motions in our daily lives? Maybe you don't feel enthusiastic about your chosen area of work. Maybe you have gotten laid off and don't know what to do next? Maybe your fiancee just gets up one morning and says she leaving you for someone else?

That feeling of malaise has hit you like a huge set of bricks and instead of crying out to God, you confide in your close friend and he /she talks your business all about the work office.

In this scenario, you might feel dead emotionally, but you know that you are alive because your heart is still beating and you other vital organs are functioning somewhat.

Well, imagine if you were the main character in this book entitled Burn The Dead. This book written by author Steven Jenkins chronicles the life of Robert who burns dead people for a living. He opens a body bag one morning and finds his wife in the bag! He must try to get back to his neighbourhood in Crandale which now resembles a scene from Walking Dead. Persons infected with this unusual disease feeds on living healthy persons.

Here is my review of Burn the Dead which I completed on 22 July 2014.  I gave it 4 stars.

Burn the Dead is a fast paced suspense novel that revolves around Robert, a regular guy who works for a company responsible for an incinerator.  Robert burns dead people for a living.  On a daily basis, he burns people infected with the Necro-Morbus disease which turns humans into zombies.  He lives in Crandale in the United Kingdom with his wife Anna and his son Sammy.Unfortunately, Robert lets his curiosity get the better of him and he starts peeping at the corpses in the body bags.  This day in particular, he actually views his wife Anna in a body bag!  His emotional turmoil begins and he is agitated and extremely anxious to find Sammy  and thereby protect him from the infected humans or "Necs".  Author Jenkins relates Robert's arduous task of searching for Sammy and his many narrow escapes from death.

Burn the Dead is a gripping tale- both emotionally and figuratively.  From the get-go, the reader becomes enthralled in the plot.  I read the story and I did not want to put down the book!  The language is colloquial and interspersed with a few expletives.  This is understandable, especially in the precarious circumstances that the main character finds himself.  I love the fact that , against all odds, author Jenkins displays the tenacity of the main character.  This characteristic is truly an admirable one.  I appreciate the fact that author Jenkins chose to express his story from the main character's perspective.  This is a good tactic because as a reader you become fully immersed in the storyline.  I recommend this book to all fans of suspense novels.

Reviewed by by Valerie Rouse for Readers Favorite