Honestly, I hate zombie novels. And this is a zombie novel.
So, it makes perfect sense that I love it, right?
This is set after an alternate Civil War, that started the way ours did, and changes and ends when the battle dead start rising and attacking their fellow soldiers. Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea happens, but the main point is to burn the zombies, or, as they are called here, shamblers. The slaves are freed, "combat schools" are opened for the freed slaves and the Indians, teaching them to fight shamblers and, for the black girls at least, teaching them to be refined attendants as well as guards for rich white ladies.
Jane and Katherine are two of these girls in training to be attendants, in their final year at Miss Preston's School, just outside Baltimore. Baltimore boasts of being the safest city in the country. It might well be, but that doesn't mean nearly as much as most people think. And "darkies" like them are tasked with protecting the town, behind its impressive wall, so that white people can live lives not that different from pre-war plantation days.
Or at least that's the goal. Some of the white people are there voluntarily, fully bought into the scheme. Others agreed to go only because they were threatened with worse alternatives. The town is run by Survivalists, who claim the shambler plague came upon the nation because of the sin of egalitarianism, the belief that all people are basically equal and that slavery is wrong.
Jane and Kate need to figure out how to survive, and whether they can save anyone but themselves.
They are smart, tough girls, with very different personalities and a tendency to annoy the heck out of each other. They also did very well in their training at Miss Preston's School, And even when they are thinking that they truly dislike each other, and have realized that Miss Preston was deeply involved in the treachery that sends them west, they remember that as Miss Preston's girls, they need to rely on each other.
A zombie book, and I love it anyway.
Recommended.
I borrowed this book from my local library.
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