Teaser Tuesday + Review: Rebirth by Sophie Littlefield

From the Back Cover:

The end of the world was just the beginning.

Civilization has fallen, leaving California an unforgiving, decimated place. But Cass Dollar beat terrible odds to get her missing daughter back—she and Ruthie will be happy.

Yet with the first winter, Cass is reminded that happiness is fleeting in Aftertime. Ruthie retreats into silence.

Flesh-eating Beaters still dominate the landscape. And Smoke, Cass's lover and strength, departs on a quest for vengeance, one that may end him even if he returns.

The survivalist community Cass has planted roots in is breaking apart, too. Its leader, Dor, implores Cass to help him recover his own lost daughter, taken by the totalitarian Rebuilders. And soon Cass finds herself thrust into the dark heart of an organization promising humanity's rebirth—at all costs.

Bound to two men blazing divergent paths across a savage land, Cass must overcome the darkness in her wounded heart, or lose those she loves forever.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two "teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists!


Last week I shared a teaser from Aftertime, and this week my teaser comes from the second book in the series, Rebirth. I am loving this series and I recommend it for anyone who's a fan of edge-of-your-seat action combined with gut-wrenching emotion. Read on after the teaser for my review. This is from page 125, and it really is only two lines!


She'd earned this fury every time Byrn let his eyes linger on her body, every time his furtive hands found her in the dark; she'd stoked it with each man to pass through her doors and back out again; cherished and honed it when Ruthie had been ripped from her, when every scar was laid open at once. This was a dangerous road to take, and one she had found was drawing her more and more in recent weeks.


My Thoughts:

I was so impressed with Sophie Littlefield's Aftertime, that I had to read Rebirth right away. It's very hard to review this series without letting spoilers slip, so mostly I'm just going to tell you a bit about why I like these books so much. Aftertime was my first zombie novel and I thought Littlefield did a fantastic job of immersing the reader in her post-apocalytpic world without bogging the story down in details and backstory. Biological warfare destroyed the world's food supply and poisoned the majority of its population. Those that are left struggle to subsist in isolated pockets of civilization where there is safety in numbers; barricaded against Beaters (former humans who are now super-strong flesh-eating zombies thanks to eating contaminated genetically-engineered crops), and distrustful of the Rebuilders, a neo-military organization trying to re-establish control. It's downright scary and intense. But for me the best thing about this series is Cass Dollar.

Talk about someone who has been put through the wringer and never gives up. She's no wonder woman, no ass-kicking heroine--she just has this deep-seated primal urge to survive and to keep going no matter what. In Aftertime Cass was miraculously recovering from an attack by the Beaters--miraculous because those victims who aren't fortunate enough to be killed outright by them turn into Beaters. But not Cass. Her sheer grit and determination propelled her across dangerous country in search of her young daughter Ruthie, and along the way she reluctantly accepted the help of strong and silent hottie Smoke. Cass had learned the hard way never to trust a man and had vowed never to give herself to one again. But of course, she did. And she slowly came to rely on Smoke, to allow herself the luxury of feeling safer, of daring to hope they could have a future and a family in a world where futures and families don't exist. In the Aftertime.

And then in the beginning of Rebirth, Smoke leaves. Now don't judge--you don't know the whole story. But Cass takes it pretty hard. And ends up making some rash decisions and doing some stupid things and really messing with another man's head in the process. And Dor is such a hard character to read, but I like him. Leader of the safe camp where Cass and Smoke found refuge, he's leaving that safety behind to rescue his teenage daughter from the fanatical Rebuilders, and Cass and Ruthie are going with him, hoping to find a better life on the other side. And that's where I'll leave off with the plot because it is just non-stop action and tension from here on out. Whether it's an edge-of-your-seat life and death struggle or an emotional knock-out, it's all intense. And it's all good. My only real complaint is that I feel like Cass's introspection drags on a bit and gets repetitive. But this leaves off with a cliffhanger and one hardcore, gritty love triangle in place. I only wish I didn't have to wait so long to see what happens next. This series won't be for everybody; it's post-apocalyptic and it's got zombies, and some shock and horror, but at its heart it's really emotional, character-driven fiction, and the kind that makes an impression on you and stays with you long after you've read it.

My Rating: 4 Stars out of 5

*Please note: This review references an advance digital copy received from the publisher via NetGalley, and therefore the final published copy may differ. Though I received this book from the publisher, these are my honest and unbiased thoughts, and I was not compensated in any other way for reviewing this book.