Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.
When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.
But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?
The Other Life is packed full of teen speculative fiction cliches, including my pet hate of a burgeoning romance between the two leads which normally causes me to scream, "why can they never just be friends?" and then throw the book across the room for good measure! However; against all odds, I found Susanne Winnacker's debut novel to be a great read.
Susanne Winnacker knows how to spin a good yarn, and The Other Life's success lies in it's pacing. She explains a lot, and yet there's always something going on, propelling Sherry deeper into the rabbit hole, and I found myself literally unable to put this book down. I think what I loved most were the Weepers; people who had been infected with a strain of rabies that had killed the other half of the population. They are a clever way of not using your average zombie in this post-outbreak wasteland and I liked that they all looked different apart from their human-like weeping eyes. Very unsettling!
I also have to mention, as I always do, that the cover work is beautifully creepy (look at that moth a bit closer) and extends to inside the book as well, with the barbed wire trailing across the chapter headers. The last couple chapters take the story in a different direction, and I hope that will be explored in the second book of the series, due out spring next year. So, if you can, get you hands on a copy if only to stare at that lovely cover!
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