Winter (The Survivors #3)

The worst has happened. Humanity has fallen. There is no future. There is no hope. A virus has wiped out our species, with the exception of the lucky few who are immune. But now, a vicious new enemy has emerged, one that threatens everything that we're trying so hard to build.


In its darkest hour, humanity needs a hero. I've decided I will be that hero. If I have to die in the process, I can accept that, but I cannot go to my grave without knowing I have done everything possible to save my species and the people that I care about.


We cannot - no, we will not! - let this virus become our extinction event. We will endure. We will rebuild. It may take us generations, but the world we leave for our children will not be the one our parents left for us. Heroes are not born, they are created, when ordinary men and women to step forward and perform extraordinary deeds in the name of the greater good.


My name is Sandrine McDermott. I was named to honour my grandmother, and I will make her proud. I am no longer just a survivor.


***


Author’s Note:


Although this book does feature the undead, it is not intended to be horror. The Survivors is a little bit apocalyptic, a bit dystopian, a bit science-fiction, a bit zombie horror, but above all else it is a love story. To quote the very first blogger that got her hands on it: “(The Survivors is) a layered, touching, powerful story of humanity and survival.”


The story takes place in the Waikato region of New Zealand, ten years on after a killer plague erased the majority of our species from the face of the earth. 99.5% of humanity is either dead, or has been reduced to the (mostly) harmless, lumbering undead. The few people lucky enough to be immune to the disease have spent the last ten years struggling to live amongst the ruins of a dead society.


For some people, the time hasn’t been so bad. For other people – like our heroine and narrator, Sandrine McDermott – the last ten years have been a living hell. Without rules to keep people civilized, there’s nothing to keep a lone female safe except her own wits. Sometimes, that’s just not enough.


Life has not been kind to her. In fact, it’s safe to say that fate’s been kind of a bastard. However, it’s also a whimsical bastard. When Sandy injures herself and is forced to go looking for the medication she needs to survive, she finds herself on the receiving end of kindness in the last place she expects. She’s forced her to reassess her place in the world, and her own humanity.


The Survivors is a four-part tale that follows Sandy’s evolution from the psychologically-damaged wreck that she at the beginning of the story, to the true heroine that we need to preserve our species from extinction.


Somehow, some way, she must go from being one of the hopeless wanderers, to being our hope for a new tomorrow.