I found an ad for this book in the back of Glen Bullion's Dead Living and having enjoyed that I thought I'd check this out as I do find Permuted Press has a fairly good level of quality in their publishing.

This story begins in a reasonable fashion that has you quite involved in the unfolding story from nearly the beginning, it's not like some books that take awhile for you to become invested. I found it to be a quite compelling story, well written with a reasonably realistic portrayal of how events would unfold in such a crisis.

Overall, I thought it was a good book, however there's one issue I found that bothered me considerably during the reading of this - the author doesn't seem to have an understanding that a virus and a bacterium are two different organisms and not interchangeable. Either that or they just took some artistic licence with it, but it seems to be the former as artistic licence isn't really needed to have a treatment for a virus. In the story they're given a huge dose of anti-bacterials to treat the virus, whereas they should have been given anti-virals for a virus, antibacterials aren't going to do anything for a viral infection. At any rate, asides for this continual niggling issue I thought it was a great story, if you can look past this you'll enjoy it, if such things immersion for you, you probably won't. ( )

Okay thriller but the field of public health preparedness was certainly not nvestigated in her research. Several loose ends not addressed.

Immersion reading was entertainering. ( )

This was quite a good book. Kept my attention the entire time. A story about "the flu", rather, the bubonic plague and how it affects a small town, Lodi, Ohio in particular. Mick is the chief of Police, but doesn't quite look the type. Dylan was his high school sweetheart who married Sam, one of Mick's good friends.

We learn about how the plague was started, who Lars is, and also get to follow two FBI agents looking for a fugitive. All the stories finally come together in an ending I was not expecting. Yet, the ending made sense.

I got this book during a free offering. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys suspense. ( )

My full The Flu audiobook review can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

What I think is a man made virus, kept in cold storage in Alaska. Away from populations so it can be studied without worry of infecting the masses. As so often happens when a story stars off this way, the virus gets out and infects the entire continent faster than anyone thought possible. Then we are introduced to a cast of characters in Lodi, Ohio of all places. I found it very strange as to why we were concerned with the population of such a small and unassuming town. It isn’t until the second part of the book that I was able to understand why the town of Lodi, Ohio is even relevant. Full of interesting characters that are developed very well. I would even say there were too many characters to keep track of. I think it was strange that there were several distracting sex scenes that added nothing to plot. I found nothing ground breaking for terribly unique to the story. Slow to develop without a real climax, but overall good plague apocalypse adventure. A realistic insight into human nature and our will to survive and overcome anything. However I will be giving the second book a try.

Audiobook provided for review by the author. ( )

This book goes in a number of directions, only 2 of them finished. If you're here for the pandemic/influenza book, you're going to be sorely disappointed. It sucks. The author apparently doesn't know the difference between bacteria and viruses. The entire book is written as if Influenza is bacterial in origin.

The other aspect of this book that is complete is the love story between Mick and Dylan. That story is well told and as long as you're not too analytical the romance between these two characters is endearing. Of course if you look beyond the surface, these two, especially Dylan, can barely function in society. I don't know why the author chose to make them so codependent, but it does make for an interesting story.

This is a good read for anyone interested in the love story aspect and not very analytical.


Lots of people die, even main characters---so don't get too attached.
( )