Book picks similar to
Odium 1.5 by Claire C. Riley


zombies
horror
zombie
post-apocalyptic

Zombie Fallout


Mark Tufo - 2010
    With fears of contracting the H1N1 virus running rampant throughout the country, people lined up in droves to try an attain one of the coveted vaccines. What was not known, was the effect this largely untested, rushed to market, inoculation was to have on the unsuspecting throngs. Within days, feverish folk throughout the country, convulsed, collapsed and died, only to be re-born. With a taste for brains, blood and bodies, these modern day zombies scoured the lands for their next meal. Overnight the country became a killing ground for the hordes of zombies that ravaged the land.This is the story of Michael Talbot, his family and his friends. This is their story a band of ordinary people just trying to get by in these extra-ordinary times. When disaster strikes, Mike a self-proclaimed survivalist, does his best to ensure the safety and security of those he cares for.Book 1 of the Zombie Fall-Out Trilogy follows our lead character in his self-deprecating, sarcastic best. What he encounters along the way leads him down a long dark road always skirting on the edge of insanity. Can he keep his family safe? Can he discover the secret behind Tommy's powers? Can he save anyone from the zombie Queen - a zombie that seems by all accounts to have some sort of hold over the zombies and Mike himself? Encircled in a seemingly safe haven called Little Turtle, Mike and his family together with the remnants of a tattered community while not fighting each other, fight against a relentless, ruthless, unstoppable force. This last bastion of civilization has made its final stand. God help them all.

Thicker Than Blood


Madeline Sheehan - 2015
    Leisel and Evelyn lost everything. Husbands. Families. Friends. Lives that made sense. All they had left was each other, and a friendship that could withstand anything…Even an apocalypse.Until one fateful night, the marginal safety they’d come to rely on comes to a vicious and brutal end. With the help of Alex & Jami, both unlikely allies, Leisel and Evelyn are able to escape their shattered sanctuary only to find themselves face-to-face with a much altered, much crueler life where they have to find the way—and the will—to stay alive in a world they no longer recognize.Traveling across a broken and infection-ridden country; the road-weary group are pitted against endless violence, improbable circumstances, and the ultimate loss.Everything comes at a price—especially safety, the cost of which could very well strip them of the one thing they’ve tried so hard to cling to: their humanity.Yet along with all the trials they’re forced to endure, there’s also hope in the form of love. Having loved Leisel from afar, Alex attempts to put the pieces of her fractured heart back together.But in such a savage world, is there room for love?In a place of nightmares-made-reality, where the living should be feared far more than the dead, an unbreakable friendship and a love amongst all odds can mean the difference between life and death.There are friends…And then there are Leisel and Evelyn.

Rise of the Governor


Robert Kirkman - 2011
    Set in the world created by Robert Kirkman, this standalone trilogy is fast-paced, action-packed storytelling about the lengths some men will go to survive. With new characters, new storylines and with the same in-depth character-based plotting that has made the television series such an immediate hit, this trilogy of novels is sure to be a hit with those who love zombies and those who have loved the TV series and comic books.In the Walking Dead universe, there is no greater villain than The Governor. The despot who runs the walled-off town of Woodbury, he has his own sick sense of justice: whether it’s forcing prisoners to battle zombies in an arena for the townspeople’s amusement, or chopping off the appendages of those who cross him. The Governor was voted “Villain of the Year” by Wizard magazine the year he debuted, and his story arc was the most controversial in the history of the Walking Dead comic book series. Now, for the first time, fans of The Walking Dead will discover how The Governor became the man he is, and what drove him to such extremes.

The New Hunger


Isaac Marion - 2013
    Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future…

Frenzy


Casey L. Bond - 2016
    The survivors came together to create this safe haven. Nestled between a fierce river and a city’s flood wall, the well-being of its residents hangs on a long-established treaty with the night-walkers. Sounds simple enough, but lately, the people of Blackwater have been dying, and the humans believe the night-walkers are to blame. Porschia Grant starves for more than her parents’ affection. Forced to enter the rotation, she will be given extra food rations in exchange for becoming a vampire’s breakfast and dinner for a week. The rotation has an extra responsibility as well: leave the colony and enter the dangerous forest to hunt for food. A night-walker will protect the hunters from the infected that roam the woods. But with the treaty hanging in the balance and tension between the humans and vampires rising, anything could happen in the darkness. What would you do if your only chance at survival might kill you? Suggested reading order for The Frenzy Series: Frenzy, Frantic, Frequency

Contagious


Emily Goodwin - 2012
    If I died, it would be over. My worst fear wasn’t of dying, it was of living. Living, while everyone around me had their flesh savagely torn from their bodies to be shoved into the festering and ever-hungry mouths of zombies. It terrified me, right down to my very core, to be alive while the rest of the world was dead." During the Second Great Depression, twenty-four year old Orissa Penwell is forced to drop out of college when she is no longer able to pay for classes. Unable to find a job, she moves in with her aunt in Indianapolis. Down on her luck, Orissa doesn’t think she can go any lower. She couldn’t be more wrong. A virus breaks out across the country, leaving the infected crazed, aggressive and very hungry. Orissa is used to only being responsible for herself. When she finds herself a reluctant leader of a group of survivors, she must make a choice: set aside her issues and help the others or go off alone in search of her own family and friends.

Bougainvillea


Carrie Ryan - 2010
    Iza's father rules the island with a cruel and militant fist, showing little mercy to those who come begging at his docks. Iza chafes under his absolute control, refusing to believe that ruthlessness is the only path to survival. But when zombies breach their compound one night and rebels take her hostage, Iza must decide for herself what it truly takes to survive in a world filled with death and betrayal. Set in the zombie world of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Bougainvillea is the story of growing up between two worlds: the living and the dead, the rulers and the ruled, the privileged and the cast off. PLEASE NOTE: this is a short story, not a full novel. It was originally published in the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology and is included in the collection, The Dead and Empty World (also available).

Kick at the Darkness


Keira Andrews - 2015
    He humiliated himself trying to pick up a cute guy, he hasn’t made any friends at school, and his stupidly hot jerk of a TA gave him a crappy grade on his paper. He’s going to drop Adam Hawkins’ film class and start fresh tomorrow after he’s had a good sulk.But Parker’s about to find out what a bad day really looks like—if he can survive the night.A virus is unleashed, transforming infected people into zombie-like killers. After these quick and deadly creepers swarm campus, Parker only escapes thanks to Adam swooping him onto the back of his trusty motorcycle. Now they're on the run—and stuck with each other.When they’re not bickering, they’re fighting off the infected in a bloody battle for survival. Their only hope is to head east to Parker's family, but orphaned Adam has a secret he’s not sure Parker will accept: he’s a werewolf. Can they trust each other enough to find some light in these dark days?

The Upheaval


Erica Stevens - 2013
    time. Every single person felt the rumbling, and experienced the tremors that would forever alter the course of history. Most did not survive. These are the accounts of some of those that did. *Note* This book is the first compilation of a serial story, due to this fact it does not have a conclusion. *Due to language and graphic content this book is recommended for readers 17 and older. Edited by Kevin Mills Edited by Leslie Mitchell at G2 Freelance Editing.Cover art by www.EbookLaunch.com

Convoy of Carnage


David A. Simpson - 2017
    The people that tried to kill the world were fiendishly clever. After decades of planning, the contagion was unleashed and overnight hundreds of millions died and came back as rampaging, undead monsters. The living that had been lucky enough to survive the first day of carnage, lucky enough to be in the right place and lucky enough that some of them had the skills they needed, soon found out there was much more to worry about than just zombies. In the high desert on the outskirts of Reno, there is an old truck stop frequented by a mix of hard caliber truckers, day tourists, musicians and travelers. They have survived the chaotic first hours of contact with the undead and now must make their way across the country to a location they believe is safe. Zombies are only the beginning of their troubles as they try to cover the thousands of miles of open road with their hastily armored 18-wheelers. Gunny, a long haul trucker doing one of the few jobs available to him as a disgraced soldier, is unwillingly saddled with the job of getting these survivors to the safe zone. With a motley crew of truck drivers, college kids, veterans, a drug dealer and a rock star, they are racing the clock to make it before time runs out. The last text he had received from his wife before the cell towers went down told him she was trapped in a high-rise in downtown Atlanta and their son was in detention, stranded in the basement of the school he attended. Gunny just wanted to drop the hammer, steal some guns and blast his way in to rescue them but duty called. He had to get these people to safety first, then he could recruit the best of this crew to help him save his family. If they survived the journey.

Flash Bang


Meghan March - 2014
    But vicious—and false—rumors are destroying her professional life. That all ceases to matter when a plane crashes in downtown Chicago and the entire city goes dark, and she realizes she’s just witnessed the kick-off to the apocalypse. Armed with a backpack of supplies, she leaves Chicago, intent on resetting her skewed priorities and seeking shelter at the family farm with her father and sister. She’s injured and running for her life when she stumbles directly in the crosshairs of two men who just might be her salvation . . . and her greatest temptation.

Bloody Sunrise


Gwendolyn Harper - 2018
    However, when her plane is shot down, and she finds herself in the middle of a zombie virus outbreak, she realizes she was never prepared for terrors like these. Lost, alone, and afraid, Caitlin can only focus on one thing-- survival. That is until she crosses paths with Jack Booker, an ex-Marine with a shadowy past and a penchant for pushing Caitlin's buttons. Under the looming threats of the undead walking the earth, corrupt government agencies, and the horrors encoded in humanity, can unlikely friends become something more? While the world falls apart, will they fall together? Or will their luck run out eventually?

After Life Lessons: Book One


Laila Blake - 2014
    A snowstorm traps them in an abandoned gas station, where starving and desperate, they encounter Aaron, an Army medic on a mission of his own, who offers them a ride to ease the journey.The road is a long and dangerous place to travel, but it's not only the deadly infected who pose a threat. The newly enforced proximity to another human being awakens feelings, long numbed and forgotten in a world of such abject scarcity. And that's when the pain really starts to hit, when places thought lost prickle back to life, when hope opens them up to a new dose of devastation and heartbreak.Eventually, they will have to fight not just for survival, but for a future together, or their broken world will swallow them whole.Genre: General Fiction / Women's Fiction / Post-Apocalypic Love StoryLength: 80k wordsTags: Love Story, Road Adventure, Family Drama, Zombies, Survival, Character Study, Grief, Hope This novel contains language some might find offensive, some gore and situations of a sexual nature. Reader's discretion is advised.

Z-Burbia


Jake Bible - 2013
    Which is good since the zombie apocalypse has come to Western North Carolina and really put suburban living to the test! Surrounded by a sea of the undead, the residents of Whispering Pines have adapted their bucolic life of block parties to scavenging parties, common area groundskeeping to immediate area warfare, neighborhood beautification to neighborhood fortification. But, even in the best of times, suburban living has its ups and downs what with nosy neighbors, a strict Home Owners’ Association, and a property management company that believes the words “strict interpretation” are holy words when applied to the HOA covenants. Now with the zombie apocalypse upon them even those innocuous, daily irritations quickly become dramatic struggles for personal identity, family security, and straight up survival. Welcome to normal life in Z-Burbia!

The End is Nigh


John Joseph AdamsNancy Kress - 2014
    Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.