Fighting to Survive

Fighting to Survive - As the World Dies: Book Two

by Rhiannon Frater

Reviewed by Gerti

“Fighting to Survive” is the second book in Rhiannon Frater’s zombie apocalypse trilogy, and perhaps the best. She began the series with “The First Days”, which is delightful thrill ride but flawed in a number of ways. She ended the saga with “Siege”, which I just finished this afternoon, and which to my mind spends too much time bringing back the dead as ghosts, rather than zombies.

“Fighting to Survive” is my favorite novel of the group. The storyline is about former prosecutor Katie helping out housewife Jenni when the zombie apocalypse hits urban Texas. After trials and tribulations, the pair end up in a walled fort in Ashley Oaks, with about a hundred other survivors of “the Turn”, as it’s called. While the first novel sets Katie up as a lesbian, in this book she finds herself attracted to Travis, a former architect and the man who is trying to fortify the town against the undead. Jenni came from an unhappy marriage, and her husband and children are all zombies now, so she also finds a man. He is named Juan, and he is Travis’ best friend. She is so mad at the zombies and so foolhardy when she attacks them, that he begins to call her “Loca” or crazy.

In all these post-apocalyptic stories, the zombies are never the only enemy of the survivors. And sure enough, here bandits have been spying on the fort, and are eager to take out this group, which they see as competition for resources. The bandits are really evil men, who are also target other groups of survivors of the zombie onslaught, clued in to their existence by their ongoing communication with the Ashley Oaks group. Luckily, the fort’s residents catch on to what’s going on, and attempt to rescue the other bands of survivors before the bandits can rape and torture them. And since the citizens of Ashley Oaks also know they are under observation, they plan a diversion for their rescue missions, and a trap for the bandits when they come a’knockin’.

“Fighting to Survive” has its ups and downs, but its great characters and effortless storytelling were lively enough to keep me interested. I’m impressed by author Frater, who apparently started writing her novels on-line, but has luckily now gotten a contract to publish all three books. I urge all lovers of the zombie genre to head directly to Ashley Oaks, the town where civilization is trying to rebuild itself despite a hoard of reanimated dead people, and very nasty live ones! You won’t be sorry that you entered the world created by talented newcomer Rhiannon Frater.