A very very different zombie novel that through evocative language and sometimes graphic violence explores what makes humans human. It definitely needs to be read.
The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell is a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world ravaged by the undead.
God is a slick god. Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe . . .
Older than her years and completely alone, Temple is just trying to live one day at a time in a post-apocalyptic world, where the undead roam endlessly, and the remnant of mankind who have survived, at times, seem to retain little humanity themselves.
This is the world she was born into. Temple has known nothing else. Her journey takes her to far-flung places, to people struggling to maintain some semblance of civilization - and to those who have created a new world order for themselves.
When she comes across the helpless Maury, she attempts to set one thing right, if she can just get him back to his family in Texas then maybe it will bring redemption for some of the terrible things she's done in her past. Because Temple has had to fight to survive, has done things that she's not proud of and, along the road, she's made enemies.
Now one vengeful man is determined that, in a world gone mad, killing her is the one thing that makes sense . . .
'If you loved Justin Cronin's The Passage , this summer's vampire hit, you'll get a charge out of The Reapers Are the Angels . It's a literary/horror mashup that is unsettlingly good.' -- USA Today
'The Reapers Are the Angels is a knockout, a fresh take on the zombie novel, with a heroine you can't help but root for as she braves the land of the living dead and the dead living, pursued by a foe far more dangerous than flesh-eaters and with the beacon of redemption flickering ahead. Alden Bell will snatch your attention and keep it until long after you close this book.' -- Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breach
'Alden Bell provides an astonishing twist on the southern gothic: like Flannery O'Connor with zombies.' -- Michael Gruber, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Air and Shadows
Author
About Alden Bell
Alden Bell lives in New York with his wife, the Edgar-award-winning novelist Megan Abbott. For the past nine years, he has taught high school English at an Upper East Side prep school. Since 2002, he has also taught literature and cultural studies courses as an adjunct professor at the New School. Prior to coming to New York, he grew up in the heart of Orange County: Anaheim, home of Disneyland. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing. In 2000, he received his Master's and Ph.D. in English at New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American and British literature.
