Frenzy (The Frenzy, #1)

by Casey L Bond

What would you do if your only chance at survival might kill you?

After the world was ravaged by a viral apocalypse, Blackwater is one of the only colonies that remains. The survivors came together to create this safe haven. Nestled between a fierce river and a city’s flood wall, the well-being of its residents hangs on a long-established treaty with the night-walkers. Sounds simple enough, but lately, the people of Blackwater have been dying, and the humans believe the night-walkers are to blame.

Porschia Grant starves for more than her parents’ affection. Forced to enter the rotation, she will be given extra food rations in exchange for becoming a vampire’s breakfast and dinner for a week. The rotation has an extra responsibility as well: leave the colony and enter the dangerous forest to hunt for food. A night-walker will protect the hunters from the infected that roam the woods. But with the treaty hanging in the balance and tension between the humans and vampires rising, anything could happen in the darkness.

• ASIN: B01BMV59NS
• Publish Date: 9 February 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 176
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

Frenzy is for those who love vampire fiction with a little added oomph. If you like your vampire stories to have a dystopian or post-apocalyptic feel then this is certainly a series to check out.

Our story focuses on a small colony of survivors who live with very little extra to go around, and each week there are rotations of people who go out and hunt for supplies. During these rotations, they are paired with a vampire and must rely on them for protection from the infected. This whole set up is really awesome! I love the idea of there being a treaty between humans and vampires, and that added tension from the zombies is just perfection. I really liked the world that Bond created with this series so far, and while we do get only a slight amount of information about the history of the infected, the glimpses we did get were definitely full of promise.

I think the story started out rather strong but dipped a bit in the latter portion when it comes to characters. I liked Porschia in the beginning; she was thoughtful and quiet, and she didn’t seem the type to just rush into something without some forethought. I think when the plot really kicks off in the second half she starts to lapse into the trap of getting super worked up really quickly and then she started losing points for how she handled stress. I get being traumatized and in denial, and I really get that sometimes it’s just too much and people make horrible split second decisions but there were moments early on I could see that this particular ‘problem’ was going to arise. This was almost premeditated and that just irritates me to no end, because she had plenty of time to work out the issues before 70% of the way through the story. That aside I still think she’s a good character and I think her growth will definitely be something I’m interested in seeing. Her relationship with Saul is super sweet and I’m really curious to see how it’ll turn out in the second book.

When it comes to the vampires I think Bond did a pretty good job of keeping their allure and their danger well balanced. I love a charming vampire…but I still want them to be the wolf among sheep, I don’t want them to lose their edge at the first chance of love. There were some typical no-gos for me with the whole ‘claiming’ thing but I’m forgiving it just this once as he’s sort of a dick anyway…I do think that Roman and Tage need to cool it on their creepy ways, though, their ‘relationship’ with Porschia demands a swift punch to the face.

While Frenzy didn’t blow me away I did enjoy it, and I am looking forward to trying out the next book!