I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at an advanced copy of WHITE HORSE (which hit bookstores last Tuesday) but decided to hold on to my review until you could get your hands on it. ‘Cause you’re going to want to.
If you survived the end of the world, what would you become? Surely you don’t imagine you’d remain the very same you, the you that you’ve come to know and love (and self-loathe at intervals.) Would you become a hero? A hermit? Or perhaps a looter, or a lunatic?
What is there left after every achievement you’ve gained in life becomes meaningless and you’re stranded on the ashy other side of all you’ve ever known? Once someone (or something) has pushed the reset button on civilization, who will you be? And what will you cling to?
Hopefully, these kinds of questions are all just hypothetical exercises for us here on my little blog, but as I’ve always said, fiction is the best way to exercise your mental muscles for empathy, outrage, compassion, judgment, and interpretation. As such, Alex Adams’ WHITE HORSE is one hell of a workout.
In her debut novel, Adams treads a tightrope of excellent words over an abyss of death and destruction. And what little umbrella does she employ to balance against the gusts? Hope.
WHITE HORSE tells the story of Zoe Marshall’s trek across a world ravaged by a disease dubbed White Horse. She goes through wicked trials in her trans-Atlantic journey, fighting despair and digging for decency and dignity in her darkest moments. She risks all that’s left in the search for the man she loves, in the hope that he has somehow survived the plague. Zoe jousts villains and collects allies from those who remain – the small percentage of people who have natural immunity from the virus, and also the others, a scattering of the changed: the ones who didn’t die, but didn’t exactly survive, either – not recognizably as themselves, at any rate.
This isn’t for the squeamish. But what apocalypse really is, if we’re being honest?
Highly recommended.
Get WHITE HORSE at your favorite place to buy books. If that’s online, start here.
Because I Love To Hear Myself Type 