White Trash Zombie Unchained

Angel Crawford has completely recovered from her limbs rotting off. She's good as new and ready to return to her normal life. Unfortunately, her first day has a corpse rising as a mindless shambler zombie and attacking her and her coworkers. It doesn't take them long to discover that Angel's damaged parasite spread previously to some alligators who further spread the shambler strain. Now, it's approaching pandemic levels and the CDC is involved. Can Angel, Dr. Nikas, and the odious Kristi Charish come up with a cure before it's too late?

This is the sixth installment of the White Trash Zombie series and it's still going strong. Angel is still paying for her slip back into addiction from the last book although she is healed from its physical aspects. Although she would work hard to help regardless of the source, this shambler strain of the parasite is especially personal because it originated from her. She understandably feels responsible and guilty for those afflicted who are rapidly dying. Her relationship with Nick is at a standstill due to him witnessing her rotting away. Both are awkward and Angel doesn't want to make their work relationship weird. In school, she's taking classes at the local community college, but struggles with schoolwork and feels pretty pessimistic about the whole thing. By the end of the book, Angel goes through a significant mental transformation that I'm excited to see in future books.

This new shambler parasite seems to be even more contagious than the regular one. People lose their cognitive abilities and only attack other people or animals. If the disease goes on for too long, the afflicted simply die. Large groups of people turn at once and some things just don't add up. The damaged parasite came from the mindless shambler Angel infected in the last installment and infected some alligators in the river. The zombie alligators seem too over the top for the series, but I liked the more silly touch. In addition to the alligators, mosquitos may be responsible for the disease spreading. Since the parasite is historically not able to live in animals, this is all new territory. It also doesn't help that Saberton seems to be a step ahead of them every step of the way.

One of the things I love about this series is that something new is always discovered or learned about the zombie parasite. Mature zombies with the ability to change their appearance aren't new, but how they are created is discovered. Usually, it just happens over time to a small percentage of zombies. Another mature zombie can force the change, which Kang did to Pietro (they have an interesting history together), but the side effects can be catastrophic. Pietro became enraged for a long time and explains his almost psychopathic behavior. Just in this book, he suggests turning Charish against her will and basically enslaving her without any reservations. Thankfully, Dr. Nikas refuses to cross some lines and keeps him in sane territory.

White Trash Zombie Unchained continues this charming series with dynamic stories, memorable characters, mystery, and a sweet romance. I hope this series is not even close to stopping because I look forward to these books every year. Highly recommended and well written. In the meantime, I plan to read Diana Rowland's other paranormal series to make the wait less painful.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins