Zombies & the Newsflesh Trilogy

I am on a serious zombie kick recently. I can't seem to get enough of them. It started with Jonathan Maberry's wonderful Benny Imura series (Rot & Ruin, Death & Decay, Flesh & Bone, Dead & Gone) and then expanded once my Walking Dead obsession began. I may possibly have watched all three seasons in the span of a few weeks. It may not have been healthy, but it happened.

Now I am reading anything I can get my hands on Zombie related. The Ashes series by Ilsa J. Bick and the Devi's Wake series by Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due are ones I am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

One of my recent favorites the Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant, I just can't get out of my head. She has a new series (Parasitology) coming out this fall which is already on my to-read list.

What I liked most about these books was that unlike most of the other zombie novels I have read, society has not collapsed in this universe. Certainly modifications have been made--people live in fear, and you can't enter any building or sometimes even a new room without a blood test and undergoing proper decontamination procedures. But life goes on, and so does the news--which as bloggers, is the life force for adopted siblings Georgia and Shawn Mason.

This is political conspiracy series set in a world that includes zombies. They aren't the focus, but neither could these extraordinary circumstances occur without their existence. It is still a story of survival (the underlying reasons I adore this genre) but their world is described in depth and with such thoroughness  I really could envision it.

Sadly, I don't think there is room for a fourth novel, but I can keep hoping. If anyone has come across something similar, let me know. (And yes, I do know she has written several short novellas to accompany the trilogy.)


*This is not YA but I can image some older readers enjoying these books. The characters were only in their mid-twenties, so I guess it would fall under the auspices of "New Adult."