Title: Coldbrook
Author: Tim Lebbon
Synopsis: “The
facility lay deep in Appalachian Mountains, a secret laboratory called
Coldbrook. Its scientists had achieved
the impossible: a gateway to a new world.
Theirs was to be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, but
they had no idea what they were unleashing.
With their breakthrough comes disease.
Billions are dead yet still walking.
The only hope is a cure, and the only cure is genetic immunity. In the chaos of destruction there is one
person that can save the human race. But
will they find her in time?”
Review: I needed a
new book to read. My to-be-read pile still has
about 20 books in it; but none of them were what I wanted at the time. Plus I was stressed, and when I’m stressed I
go book shopping*. I found
Coldbrook. At first I failed to notice
the red eyes on the shadowy figure on the cover. I purchased this book because it’s by Tim
Lebbon and the blurb on the front cover caught my interest. The blurb reads “Will a door to another earth
mean the end for this one?” and my first thought was, “It wouldn’t be much fun
if it didn’t”. So that, combined with
the fact that this is a big book (509 pages) and therefore guaranteed to keep
me busy for a few days, prompted me to pick up Coldbrook. I did not realize until page 43 that this
was, in part, a zombie novel. At that
point I was thrilled, because I love a good zombie novel. I also felt very silly, because now when I
look at the dark, shadowy cover the red eyes are the first thing that I notice.
This book
was wonderful. It was just the novel I
needed to snap myself out of a stress filled haze in which barely any reading
was getting done. About halfway through
I realized that Lebbon was taking the story into a completely different place
than that which I had expected and that was thrilling. I was afraid for a while that it wasn’t going
to end in a satisfactory manner (for me), but at the end of the novel I was
pleased with how it all wrapped up. Coldbrook
was exciting, horrifying and thrilling.
I was reading every chance I got (although, when am I not?) and reached
the critical climax one day while reading on my break at work. I had to stop in the middle and go back to
work! It was horrible! I actually had a moment where I was sitting
in the breakroom debating just not going back to work until I was finished with
the novel. At that point it would have
been 20 more minutes tops! I think there
should be some sort of special allowances for this sort of thing. Perhaps I’ll speak to management about
instituting an extended break for special circumstances such as these.
If you
like horror and suspense read Coldbrook.
Zombies come through a portal from an alternate Earth and begin laying
waste to our world. There is death,
destruction, plane crashes and even a Speed-like bus chase. Tim Lebbon is an awesome storyteller and I
look forward to reading more from him.
* Please note: I basically go book shopping when I’m
feeling any emotion whatsoever.
Publisher: Titan
Books
ISBN: 978-1781168783
Because I loved this book I have added these to my Review
Wish List:
The Toxic City Series by Tim Lebbon
The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill
If you liked this book you may want to read:
The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant (see BookGirl’s
review of Feed here)
Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon (see BookGirl’s
review here)
