Wait For Me by J.M. McKenzie – BLOG TOUR

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Lisa is on a train, 20 miles from home, when the United Kingdom is hit by a terrifying bioterrorist attack and a national emergency is declared. After she was separated from her husband, Neil, in the hours following the September 11th attack, she made him promise that, in the event of a similar crisis, their priority should be to go home and wait for each other there. Keeping her promise, and trusting Neil to keep his, she sets out on what she believes will be a quick and easy journey. But the world she once knew has changed forever and has become deadly and unpredictable. Will she make it back home to Neil? Will he be there? Will he wait for her?

Wait For Me is a dystopian tale that skillfully balances love and danger. Although there is a zombie apocalypse going on in the background McKenzie keeps the focus on the characters. Her creativity is on display throughout.

Horror is really amazing at the moment. We are blessed with having such a wide range of sub-genres to get our teeth into. Nothing makes my black heart come to life more than Dystopian and Zombie horror stories. I don’t know why as consumers of horror we allow ourselves to enjoy tales of survival that at the centre are viruses that create zombies that will feast on your flesh if you aren’t quick enough. Why do we torture ourselves? I know for me it’s that quickening of the heartbeat, the adrenaline coursing through your veins, it’s the ultimate flight or fight.

Wait For Me is about one woman’s fight to return to her husband. The Zombie Apocalypse has broken out in the UK, and she needs to fight with all that she has if she ever wants to lay her eyes on him again. It’s tragic, her battle is heroic, and it highlights that our will to survive and protect is a strong evolutional trait. I’m a huge fan of zombie tv shows, from The Walking Dead, and All of Us are Dead to the penultimate Resident Evil franchise. I’m going to be honest here, I got huge Walking Dead vibes, our main character felt like those early seasons of Rick Grimes, and let me tell you that I was more than here for it. My seatbelt was engaged, I popped a few antacids, and I was prepared to chop off a Zombie’s head if I had to!

Lisa was a refreshing character. Nice that she was more mature, married, and had no children. It’s not often those characteristics are put together. Her life has quickly transformed literally before her eyes, this is nothing that she could’ve ever planned for. Could anyone? She comes across as a very quiet character but she really spoke to me, with her empathetic nature toward killing the zombies that became a direct threat to her. She cared enough to wonder what their lives were like before, who they were, what they’d become, it all mattered to her. It was touching and incredibly sad that someone’s mother/daughter/aunt could become this. This was great writing, and I found myself compulsively enthralled.

Life is always going to throw curveballs our way. As much as we think that we have everything planned out, something will come along and unseat us. That’s life, I think it’s always best to plan for the unexpected, even for Zombies! Neil, her husband is only a short distance away, in normal circumstances it wouldn’t take long at all to reach him but with the emergence of the Zombie Apocalypse in the UK, the journey to him becomes arduous and takes weeks. The uncertainty of whether he is alive is eating up Lisa, her emotions are conflicted, but she just knows that she needs to keep her promise to him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.M. had a long career in healthcare but, like many people, always had a personal ambition to write a
book. As a child she aspired to be a writer but was never encouraged or supported to follow this
career path. She always wrote in the context of her work, but this was largely on commercial and
scientific subjects. It was only after she took early retirement in 2018 that she started writing in
earnest.
In January 2021 she published her first fictional novel, Wait for Me, the extraordinary story of one
ordinary woman’s journey to get home to her husband at the start of the zombie apocalypse in the
UK. Trident Edge, the sequel to Wait for Me, was published in October 2021.

J.M. McKenzie