Publishing Date: December 9, 2013
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Publisher: Pocket Star
Summary:In this enthralling debut thriller in the vein of Contagion, a young couple struggles to save their plague-stricken son as they desperately fight back against a tyrannical government.
A new strain of the bubonic plague is diagnosed in London. Before it can be contained it spreads through the population, faster and deadlier than anyone could have imagined. Three weeks is all it takes for decimate the country.
Johnny and Liz are devastated when their young son, Nathan, starts to show symptoms, but Liz phones the authorities anyway, and a few hours later, the army arrives and boards up their house.
Now Nathan is dying and there is nothing they can do to help him. Hours pass like weeks as their little boy grows weaker and weaker. All Liz want is for them to die with some dignity, but the authorities refuse to help. Then their Internet and phones stop working. Cut off from the world and stuck inside their house, the family tries its best to cope- but there is nothing they can do to stop the lethal epidemic.
Review Note: This book was approved by NetGalley as an ARC exchanged for an honest review.
Review:
Plague is no zombie book. It reminds me of the novel Hot Zone and other films and movies that deals with some sort of strain, disease, or virus.
History repeats itself once again. The Bubonic Plague finds itself in modern day London. It's faster and deadlier and spreads through London population like wildfire.
No one knows where this plague has come from. All we know is that it's deadly and no one is safe.
Johnny and Liv, with their four year old son, Nathan lives London while the Plague is going on. Devastated that Nathan is sick, he shows and has the symptoms of the Plague.
With a sick son, Johnny and Liv will do anything they can to help their sick son so Liv phones the authorities for help, but only ends up having their house boarded up-- which signifies to everyone that they have been quarantined. But since that happened, things go down hill from there.
There will be no spoilers but I will discuss the important things that I found terrifyingly interesting while reading this book!
Johnny and Liv and Nathan are trapped in their own home with no way to get out. Because if they do, the watcher that's looking over their house has orders to shoot them down if they tried.
With only medicine and limited amount of food, Johnny and Liv try to make the best of everything they have and can to help Nathan, but to soon come to the conclusion that he doesn't have long to live.
The thing that gets to me is the various symptoms an infected/sick/ill person has to go through when they caught the Plague. And Lisa Hinsley doesn't leave and sugar-coat things about the body when it comes to this.
The first thing you will have are swellings on your neck, under your arms and in between your legs. These will grow and grow until maybe into the size of a baseball. Then they'll start to change colors of blue, black, and purple. Soon, it will get hard to breathe until you're left wheezing.
Next, if I can remember, will be that you will start to vomit.
Have terrible diarrhea...
...you'll start to be in extreme pain that it hurts to even be touched. You can feel the pain everywhere. The pain will be too unbearable that you'll start screaming.
...Soon, it doesn't stop because then you'll start to suffer from fevers, rashes, seizures, and delirium...
Imagine if this happened. Today. In our era, with our advanced technology and medicine-- it'd be too late to have a vaccine or have a "cure" because by that time, half of the world's population (if it was international), would be dead. There would be chaos. Quarantines. Military personnel. Death.
If you're quarantined, or someone who is also in your home with the sickness, you wont be able to leave your house no matter what happens.
The plague will continue on until everyone is dead and there is nothing left, or until the plague dies out because there will be no more hosts.
Soon, internet will be cut of. Telephones. Eventually electricity and gas will be shut off. Because this is exactly happens in Plague-- at least some of it.
Liv is the only one alone taking care of her family when her son and eventually Johnny gets sick. Soon, Liv believes after a few episodes of vomiting that she too is getting sick and eventually will share the same fate as her son and husband.
Things that happen within this book can actually happen in real life, and I give Lisa Hinsley praise for that. Everything has a realistic feel to it.
The only question I have about this book was: where did this plague come from? How it began? Has the plague itself died down before springing back up again unexpectedly? It appears from the ending that the book that there should be a sequel. I hope there is a sequel because there are many things left unsaid.
Plague is about survival. Surviving in this hell that you're body is taking until you can't take no more- you want everything to end because it's too horrific and painful and terrifying and you want nothing but for it to stop. But it doesn't. For those who already hadn't been sick, like Liv, will they eventually catch the sickness and come to a terrible fate like everyone else or will they become a special survivor?
Conclusion:
I enjoyed Plague. Lisa Hinsley does a great job at creating, well, re-creating a real-life disease and transporting it into our modern day world. Things that goes on in this book can actually happen in real life.
Like I mentioned before, Plague reminds me of so many books and films that deals with this type of phenomenon that you start to wonder, if at any given time, what will happen when it really does happen? Would we be prepared enough for it? But no one will ever know.
Plague is suspenseful, sort-of-gross, but an intriguing book. If you're into the disease/virus/strain- kind of book then Plague is the right book for you.
4.8/5- Plague gets from me. I will definetly be looking out for more future books from her.
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