Red Death by Jeff Altabef

Red Death by Jeff Altabef
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the city of Eden every child has been raised to fear the Red Death, a plague that came as punishment for ancient sins long forgotten. For centuries the guardians of the city protect those inside from the plague that comes too close.

Seventeen year old Aaliss is a Guardian that has trained to protect Eden but when her younger brother, Wilky, discovers a cure to the plague their world turns upside down and the pair find themselves on the run and outside the boundaries of Eden and into the land of the Soulless where they find themselves navigating a medieval world filled with witches, magic, and warrior kingdoms run by Elders.

Red Death is one of those books that I picked up and immediately had the uh oh moment when opening up to find a glossary of the characters to keep track of during the book. For me when things are that complicated that one of these are needed I often find myself lost and not enjoying a book as much as I would like. However, even though I probably even picked this one up at a pretty bad time, I’d had surgery the week before and my pain pills had my attention span incredibly short, I still ended up enjoying the overall story with this book. Was it a tad confusing? Yes. But with a bit of rereading and the use of the glossary I slowly made my way through the book and was glad that I had.

In the end I would warn that this can be a tad confusing the the changes of POV all throughout and the amount of characters and action going on during the book but it was worth the read. An interesting mix of science fiction, fantasy and dystopian and I do love when things cross over genres and have their own originality involved.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.