Book Review: No Lasting Burial; Stant Litore.

I wanted to try and get one more book in before the end of June, and this Netgalley choice felt like the perfect choice to end the month with. I have been dying to read it for ages and I was not disappointed!

SOURCE: Netgalley
TYPE: E-Read

TITLE: No Lasting Burial
AUTHOR: Stant Litore
SERIES: The Zombie Bible (#4)
PUBLISHER: 47North
PAGES: 366
GENRE: Historical Fiction, Horror, Adult

RATING: 4/5 Stars

Blurb:
A first-century Israeli village lies ruined after zombies devour most of the coastal community. In their grief, the villagers threw the dead into the Sea of Galilee, not suspecting that this act would poison the fish and starve the few survivors on land.

Yeshua hears their hunger. He hears the moans of the living and the dead, like screaming in his ears. Desperate to respond, he calls up the fish.

Just one thing:


The dead are called up, too.

What I Liked:

• Stant Litore wrote this book so well. I don't really know what I was expecting, I was a little unsure about shoving Zombies into famous Biblical stories that inspire so many people. But it worked so well. I didn't feel like I needed a lot of Biblical knowledge to understand the references or the characters. This story was more focused on humanity, and it's ability (or lack of) to deal with a crisis, deal with prejudice and band together in a time of need. The plot premise was well explored and I wish I had read the others before this one (though I didn't need to to understand it).
• The characters were well-written. They were easy to follow, relateable, and I really enjoyed reading about their lives, loves and tragedies. All of them suffer but all of them find happiness and hope at some point. I loved Yeshua's (the obvious nod towards Jesus) character too. Yes he fed the starving, healed and resurrected. But he was so much more than that too! He suffered and felt pain and became much more than just there to save the day.
• It was pretty obvious that Litore had put a lot of effort into the world-building of his book. There was so much context and history found within the pages but it was written well enough to feel original. I love it when authors put a lot of work into the books that they write in terms of research and Litore definitely did.

What I Disliked:

• If I had one small complaint, I suppose it would be that the book did jump about a bit. I read a lot of different character viewpoints and it moved around the timeline a bit too. It didn't help that a couple of the characters had the same name. I don't think it detracted all that much from my reading though, and I still followed it pretty easily.

Overall Conclusion:

I'm so glad I gave this book a shot, despite my initial reservations. The cover art is beautiful and the words found within were gripping and kept me on my toes throughout the entire book! I loved the world Litore wrote about, the handling of the Undead in the story and the characters we got to hear about. I would love to read the others in the series!