Blaze Erupting: Scorpius Syndrome/A Brigade Novella

by Rebecca Zanetti

• ISBN13: 9781948050074
• Publish Date: 5 January 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 124
• Language: English

Reviews

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.ca.

Scorpios Syndrome is a favorite series. I really love this world that Rebecca Zanetti has created. If you’re not familiar with this world, there is a bacteria that is killing people. Some people survive after contracting Scorpios, but many don’t. The ones that survive are sometimes different. There are people anywhere from just becoming psychopaths others really losing their minds and don’t even act human anymore.

In this novella, we spend some time with a different group than we have been in the full-length books. It also takes place earlier in the series. So you can read this book without knowing anything about this series.

Here we have Hugh and Ellie. They were a couple years ago in school, but it has been ten years since they were together. Now, Hugh works to keep America’s nuclear plants safe from terrorist. Ellie is a computer genius working. Ellie is currently working with the Brigade, “which is the USA’s first line of defense against all things Scorpius”. Now Hugh is working there too. He knows the best ways to protect those plants. They want to keep them up and running and more importantly, keep terrorist from blowing them up and radiating the countryside.

However, because of some undercover work that is classified, Hugh isn’t trusted by the team. But they are trusting him a bit, because no one knows more about these plants and the terrorists that might target them than Hugh.

This is a nice second chance romance (not a trope I love, but I don’t mind it. I know some people love it). There is also a great suspense story. It is a great introduction to this series that I really love.

Her heart started to beat faster. This was the worst time in the entire timeline of humanity to start a real romance. Well, except during the plague. No. Scratch that. This was worse. Especially since she now had a beyond dangerous job, and he seemed hell-bent on protecting her. There was no protection these days.
There was a whole lot of planning and even more luck. That was it. “You need to take a breath.”
His grin was oddly determined. A little intimidating. How strange. Especially since the look he gave her sent little tingles through her entire lower body.
“I’m breathing just fine, baby. I understand you’re scared,” he said.
“I’m not scared,” she retorted like any eight-year-old challenged on the playground. She cleared her throat, trying to look like an adult, damn it. “I’m just being realistic.”
“I’m not gonna hurt you, Ellie Mae,” he said, his voice gentle. “Not you. Feel free to fall hard.”
She blinked. Once and then twice. Was that arrogant? She mulled it over, watching his implacable face. Wait a minute. Hell yes, that was arrogance. “While I like confidence as much as the next girl, give me a break. You’re not that irresistible.” Yeah, right. She was getting better at this whole lying thing, though.
He pressed his lips together, and it took her a second to realize he was trying not to chuckle.

[EBookObsessed]

Rebecca Zanetti does what Fear the Walking Dead failed to do, take us back to the beginning of the plague which ends civilization and keep us interested.

The first novella which introduced the concept of the Scorpius bacteria was Scorpius Rising. With the next book, Mercury Rising, we were already dealing with the aftermath of the plague and how the survivors were recreating some semblance of civilization. In Blaze Erupting, we take a set back to our hero Deke McDougal who is the leader of The Brigade, an elite military branch who were tasked with keeping order while the world burned around them. And someone is trying to make the world literally burn while the fear and chaos of Scorpius ruled the planet.

Deke’s computer expert, Ellie Smithers, bring in her college friend Hugh Johnson to the Brigade. Hugh is high up in the command of power plants and works with the security, trying to keep terrorists from taking advantage of weaknesses. One large weakness since Scorpius is the fact that more than half of the staff at the more vulnerable plants have either succumbed to Scorpius or have taken their families and run, leaving the gates wide open for someone to turn a power plant into a nuclear bomb.

Deke’s Brigade has come across information which indicates that someone will soon be making an attempt on a plant, but they are hoping that Hugh can help them determine which nuclear plant is the most likely target and most susceptible right now.

Ellie and Hugh were just friends in college but they both hope to have enough time before the world goes to hell to maybe become more than just friends.

But photos show up in an FBI file showing Hugh getting all chummy with a known terrorist, and Ellie hopes to prove him innocent before Deke decides to cut his losses and find another way to stop nuclear winter on top of a devastating virus.

I found the funniest part is where they so certain that someone will figure it out and stop the pandemic; “Don’t worry everything will be fine.” while in my head I keep going “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

Even in the future post-Scorpius world, nuclear winter would be too devastating for the sane survivors of the virus to rebuild the world, so the Brigade has to succeed.

In this short story, we had a good romance, action, excitement, and even ice cream. You will miss ice cream post-apocalypse.

We have been hoping (both in the story and out) to have a meet between our current group of survivors and Nora, Deke and the Brigade which met in the first book. I hope there will be more novellas which help us bridge the gap between the now and the then.

See more at Http://ebookobsessed.com