Zombie Abbey by Lauren Baratz-Logsted @EntangledTeen #bookreview #historical #horror #YA

Title: Zombie Abbey

Author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Publisher: Entangled: Teen

Publication Date: April 3, 2018

Page Count: 352

My rating:   3 1/2 stars

About the book:

1920, England

And the three teenage Clarke sisters thought what they’d wear to dinner was their biggest problem…

Lady Kate, the entitled eldest.
Lady Grace, lost in the middle and wishing she were braver.
Lady Lizzy, so endlessly sunny, it’s easy to underestimate her.

Then there’s Will Harvey, the proud, to-die-for—and possibly die with!—stable boy; Daniel Murray, the resourceful second footman with a secret; Raymond Allen, the unfortunate-looking young duke; and Fanny Rogers, the unsinkable kitchen maid.

Upstairs! Downstairs! Toss in some farmers and villagers!

None of them ever expected to work together for any reason.

But none of them had ever seen anything like this.

Zombie Abbey by Lauren Baratz-Logsted is a young adult historical horror story that takes readers back to 1920 in England and tosses them into a zombie apocalypse. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons on this one to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and perhaps that’s true but I haven’t read and/or watched to know the details to it. But that obviously makes this one not really a completely original idea either but being new to me I found it a fun idea to go back in history instead of normally zombie reads being set in the future.

This book centers around the Clarke family and their visitors and workers etc at their property. The three Clarke sisters play a huge part but the point of view bounces around between a lot of the characters without really focusing too much on any one particular person at any given time. This is one of the reasons I lowered my rating as I think it would have made connecting a bit easier had the author toned back a bit and focused on more specific characters.

What seemed to be done well though was bringing readers back into that time period and setting up the way things were back then. The book starts off with pushing suitors at the eldest Clarke sister because of course back in those days women just had to be married off and of course to someone of their station, that cute stable boy would have definitely been off limits.

As the story went on and the zombie activity begins to make it’s appearance it also seemed to fit the time period. You see something like Walking Dead with it’s hoards of zombies and that fits the population in this time frame well Zombie Abbey started off a bit slower of course to fit that time period.

So when it was all said and done I do think perhaps this one had a few issues that could have been a bit better it was still an entertaining read overall leaving me to rate it at 3.5 stars. There’s of course the horror side with the zombies but take that and mix it with a bit of history and even some romance making it a nice mix up with just the right amount of action.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

Lauren Baratz-Logsted was a bookseller and buyer for eleven years before deciding to take a chance on herself as an author. She’s since had more than twenty books published for adults (Vertigo), teens (The Twin’s Daughter) and children (The Sisters 8 series, created with her husband and daughter). She’s published a few ebooks as well, including a comedic romance for adults, The Bro-Magnet. She lives in Danbury, CT, with her husband Greg and daughter Jackie. http://www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com/