From CJ Leede, the author of Maeve Fly, comes a scorching new apocalyptic novel. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods meets The Last of Us in this epic and sweeping story about the end of the world as we know it.

A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust.

Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin…

The end times are coming.

I received an advance galley of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

Last year, I read and LOVED CJ Leede’s “Maeve Fly.” It was one of my top 10 reads of 2023, and she quickly became an auto-buy author for me. When I read the synopsis for this book, I knew I had to have it, and I was lucky enough to snag an advanced galley and an ALC of the title. I devoured it in only a couple of days.

The book is set in present-day Wisconsin, and we spend our time with Sophie, a 16-year-old Catholic girl who is very sheltered and very naive. After her parents sent her twin brother away to a hospital for troubled teens, Sophie has been a bit lost. She goes to church and her private Catholic school, prays, reads her bible, and only occasionally sneaks in books that aren’t on the approved list set forth by her parents, but she wouldn’t exactly call herself happy.

When news begins to break of a disease spreading through the Northeast, Sophie only receives bits and pieces of the news at school, mainly because her parents shelter her from current events at home. They tell her there’s nothing to worry about, but when the virus makes its way to her hometown and eventually into her home, Sophie finds herself doing everything she can to get out of the quarantine zone and find her brother. Along the way, she’ll meet new friends and new enemies and question everything she’s been taught about good and evil, all while trying to survive being attacked by lust-crazed zombies that will eat your face off while fucking you to death – for real!

Needless to say, with that last sentence, this one is one hell of a wild ride, and I loved every minute of it. There’s a lot packed into this novel, and I was here for it! The first several chapters are pretty low-key as we meet Sophie and get a look at her life. She’s very sheltered, and we get a ton of religious BS stuffed in our faces, but it’s needed to set the tone. The book is told from Sophie’s first-person POV, and this gets us into her headspace. Is all the talk about sinners and God annoying? Sure – especially for those of us who grew up in religious communities and had this same crap forced on us – but this is Sophie’s life, and she doesn’t know any better. This all sets the stage for Sophie’s journey, and these first few chapters before all hell breaks loose are necessary to help us see things from Sophie’s sheltered and narrow perspective.

Once the shit hits the fan, it’s on, and this one doesn’t let up. It’s a mad dash across Wisconsin as Sophie and her newfound friends fight to stay alive, searching for safety. What I loved about this book was how closely it mirrors our current scenario here in the good old U-S of A. Religious fundamentalists are great at screaming at us and telling us we’re sinners and going to hell and that drag queens and gay people are ruining the country – precisely what they do in this book. But this book also illustrates how it’s actually these zealots who are ruining the world, and it’s their ignorance and the way they force their ideals on everyone that is literally destroying everything.

I had the pleasure of receiving both an electronic galley and an advance listener copy of this book, so I double-fisted the entire thing. This was great because it was a book I couldn’t stop thinking about, and it helped me tear through it even faster. The narrator of the audiobook perfectly captures Sophie’s innocence, and she changes as Sophie changes. She delivers everything with a lot of emotion – perfectly hitting all the marks along the way. If you’re into audiobooks, definitely check this one out!

If you loved “Maeve Fly,” then you definitely need to have this book on your TBR. This one may have cured my zombie burnout – I want more! It’s action-packed, intense, scary, and has so much to say about the current messed-up ideals of the USA. I can’t wait to get my finished copy so I can put it on my shelf right next to Maeve. I can’t wait to read what CJ Leede comes up with next.