Red Hill

A deadly outbreak races across the world, and soon, humanity is overrun by the hungry dead. As society collapses around them, people huddle together for safety, seeking refuge wherever they can find it. A man abandoned by his wife desperately tries to protect his daughter. A single mother races to find her children. Two sisters and their boyfriends struggle to reach a safe house. But when the world as you know it has ended, mere survival may not be enough.

There have been plenty of zombie novels – hundreds of them, in fact – but I daresay Red Hill is the first work of zombie literature since Max Brooks’s World War Z. It’s a novel concerned less with horror and gore, focusing instead on survival, maintaining hope, and the quest to not just endure, but live.

McGuire’s characters are flawed and believable, deep, in a genre where superficiality reigns supreme. She captures the tension of living in close quarters under stress, adding dynamism and credibility to the storytelling. Plus, people actually recognize the zombie apocalypse when it arrives, and act accordingly, which is wonderfully refreshing. While it gets a bit soap opera-y toward the end, Red Hill is still the best zombie novel in years.