Advance Review Copy generously provided by the author via IndiGo Marketing and Design in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb:

Adrift in a post-apocalyptic world, they only have each other. Is it enough?

A virus that turns the infected into zombie-like killers spreads through a burning world thrown into lawless chaos. Lovers Parker and Adam have escaped to the open sea when they hear a message over the airwaves from a place called Salvation Island—a supposed safe haven.

Orphaned as a child, werewolf Adam has always longed for a pack. He’s eager to investigate the island, but Parker doesn’t think for a nanosecond that the voice on the radio can be believed. He doesn’t trust anyone but Adam and is determined to keep it that way. They don’t need anyone else complicating their struggle to survive. Or do they?

Danger on the high seas can surface in a heartbeat, and if Parker and Adam aren’t careful, the current will drag them under.

This gay romance is a dystopian adventure featuring a werewolf, his boyfriend, and their struggle to find a place to call home.

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Review:

This book should NOT be read as a stand alone. Fight the Tide picks up right where book one, Kick at the Darkness, leaves off. Parker and Adam have escaped the atrocities taking place on land from the infected “creepers” and have taken to the open seas.

I’m GLAD I read book one, because yeah, I’d have been seriously lost.

In my review the other day of the first book, I talked about my stubbornness with suspending disbelief for paranormal stories. Sometimes it’s easy…sometimes not. I struggled at times during the first book, puzzling together how zombies and werewolves and end-of-days were all meshing together a bit haphazardly for me.

This one worked a lot better for me — maybe because I was more prepared and had a better grip on what I was getting into.

Parker and Adam are relatively safe from the creepers now that they’re at sea. I worried, from a story perspective, what major challenges they could possibly face from the zombie apocalypse while being isolated on a sailboat.

Rest assured, plenty of challenges arise.

But I was thinking, going into this, of all the other challenges they’d face. Only so many supplies and provisions can be packed onto a sailboat. Only so much fuel can be pumped into a tank — or stored in spare cans, and gasoline does go bad over time. Masts can break, sails can tear, instruments often fail. Someone could fall over and become a shark snack, or break a bone, or get a cut that gets infected. How are they going to avoid scurvy if they don’t have fresh fruit and vegetables? What about pirates? Certainly, they wouldn’t just bob over the waves and fuck each other throughout the whole story and for the next 46 years or so. Right?

Yeah…there’s drama and stuff here that kept things interesting. And some folks get added into the mix to shake things up and compound the challenges and test their humanity.

This was far more character driven — as their circumstances dictated. We get a deeper level of understanding and intimacy with both Parker and Adam, and them as a couple, than I felt in the first book. I was so glad for that, and I’m pretty sure it’s what made me enjoy this book so much more. I needed the characters and the humanity to shine brighter than the paranormal.

The creepers are still doing their creepy things, so there’s still some of that. Adam’s wolf emerges a few times, so we get that too. And there’s a chance, an excellent chance that he’ll soon learn all he wants to know about his wolfy heritage.

And the sex was off the charts with…ummm. Do you get what I mean if I just say “fist bump” for all the sex? I thought we might get treated to knotting — I learned about that recently because the internet is awesome. But no. And that’s okay because I’m not sure I’m really ready for it. This went other places I didn’t expect that were quite spectacular.

The writing this time around felt a bit stronger for me, the characters had much more depth, and the dialogue felt more natural. All around a winner.

I still wondered about things that would or wouldn’t be happening on land in this end-of-days. Like livestock that’d become so dependent on human care — the dairy cows in particular. How are people surviving on land? Is there anywhere that’s truly safe — other than the ocean and possibly a few islands? Are there any female creepers who were knocked up before they transformed? Are there creeper babies now? And what about all the other paranormal possibilities? It usually follows that if werewolves exist then so do other shifters or fantastical beings. Right? There’s a LOT I NEED TO KNOW.

From what I understand there are a few more books in this series headed our way. Count me in.

This review also posted on GoodReads and Amazon.

Purchase Link:

Amazon

Other Books in the Series: