I’ve heard this described as a post-apocalyptic zombie romance novel, and that’s a fairly apt description. (And no, it’s not the zombies having romance.) Mary lives in a community protected from the Unconsecrated by a high fence. This community believes they are the last living community on earth, the last survivors of the zombie plague. They are a religious community, trying to serve God as best they can in order not to stir His wrath, terrified that He will set the Unconsecrated on them. When Mary’s parents die, she is turned out by her brother and has no other choice but to join the Sisterhood, the religious order of women who run the community. Since Mary no longer believes in God – how could God exist if both her parents were allowed to become Unconsecrated? – and is in love with a childhood friend who is about to marry her best friend, joining the Sisterhood is the worst thing she can imagine. Until she starts to discover the secrets the Sisterhood keeps.

As the book goes on, through Sisterhood secrets, through unexpected marriage proposals, through a breach in the fence that forces Mary and her friends to go far beyond the only world they’ve ever known, Mary explores the meaning of love, the wisdom (or folly) of living for a dream, and the price of sacrifice.

While the premise sounds strange – zombies and romance?? – this ended up being a pretty good book. Ryan knows how to manipulate her reader with words, and I really appreciate finding an author who understands the romantic power of a brief touch of a finger, or of lips forcibly kept a finger-width apart. This is my type of romance. Forget the stuff that goes into normal romance novels and give me a book with all the tension that leads up to a first kiss!! I was sucked into the scenes between Mary and her chosen, Travis, so much that I completely forgot the world around me.

The zombie parts weren’t as good for me. They weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they just weren’t as interesting or as captivating. Thankfully, they weren’t overly gross. Everything was written so tactfully that I never squirmed, and I don’t have a high tolerance for gore. So that’s good. Ryan wove the undead into the plotline so well that it didn’t feel like a cheesy zombie book at all.

And then, right before the end, there’s a revelation that I didn’t expect, which jolted me so much that I sat up from where I was lying down reading, and which made me come straight to the computer to find out if there is going to be a sequel (and there is). A simple thing which I won’t reveal, of course, but which changed my whole outlook on the entire book. I finished reading yesterday evening and I’m still reeling a bit from it. I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel!