Monday, December 9, 2013

Plague

Plague by Lisa Hinsley
Simon and Schuster Digital Sales; 12/9/2013
eBook: 129 pages
ASIN: B00BSBVF86
lisahinsley.weebly.com/novels.html

In this enthralling debut thriller written 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 to 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 wants 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.

My Thoughts:

Plague by Lisa Hinsley is a novella with a huge impact. Johnny and Liz know their son Nathan is sick, they also realize that it is a new strain of the bubonic plague. Authorities are telling people that the outbreak isn't spreading but clearly, as seen in their neighborhood, the authorities are lying. Liz, Johnny and Nathan find themselves trapped in their home which has been literally boarded up tight to keep them inside. A government watcher is supposed to help them should they need anything - and also shoot them if they try to escape their home/prison.  Soon it becomes clear that everything is much worse than anyone has said.

Hinsley accurately describes the symptoms of the plague and how it would affect the infected person. For those who know, the symptoms aren't pretty and Hinsley is graphic in her descriptions. The chapters are presented as days so you can get a feel for how quickly the plague ravages the victim. Hinsley describes this as a horror novel, and rightly so. The real effects of the Bubonic Plague on a person would be horrendous and the descriptions make that quite clear.

Since this is a novella it is just a slice of an ordinary family's battle with the plague. It is one family's struggle to survive a horrific event. There is no huge backstory on how or why it started or who set a new strain of the plague loose. Currently people can't spread Bubonic plague but they can pneumonic plague. What makes Hinsley's story even more frightening is that this time the plague can spread from person to person.

Those who follow this sort of thing (um, me) know that the plague (Yersinia pestis) exists right now, among us, in various populations of animals (prairie dogs, black footed ferrets, chipmunks, squirrels, marmots, rodents, coyotes) and yes, it can jump to human hosts through a flea bite. The Bubonic plague does show up from time to time today. This knowledge makes Plague even more frightening.

Very Highly Recommended - Certainly worth the price of $1.99!


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of of the publisher for review purposes.






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