♥Donnie Darko Girl♥: Four by Zack Scott ~ Blog Tour: #BookReview & #Giveaway

Hello there, Donnie Darlings! Welcome to my stop on the Four blog tour hosted by CBB Book Promotions! Click here to follow along with the full schedule.

Four
(Their Dead Lives #1)
by Zack Scott
Publication date: 06/28/11

Source: Copy for review

Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis

A tragic past. A destined reunion. A decaying hope.

In Southern California, four friends must face a haunting nightmare from high school in order to save the future of humanity. But will their personal conflicts get in the way? Battling for survival, these fated four will choose whether to follow a destined path or continue their dead lives, while the zombie apocalypse feeds them one cliche after another.

"We leave as four."

FOUR is a zombie story to be devoured, heh heh. But seriously, this was a great zombie read with well developed characters and a well written plot. There's even something extra thrown in supernatural-wise besides the zombies, which had me turning the pages to find out what it was because it isn't revealed for quite a while.

The four main characters - Jeff, Scot, Alec, and Kale - are friends from high school who are like the four Musketeers, but they've had drama where two of them hate each other and they all four generally drifted apart after high school. They organize a reunion of sorts, and pretty soon everything goes to hell. Literally.

Scot's a player. He has a sort-of girlfriend, and I say sort of because he cheats on her, constantly. He's a douche, but I didn't totally hate him. I disliked him greatly, lol.

Alec is sweet and ready to settle down with his high school sweetheart. He's having trouble with his dream of becoming a firefighter. I liked him quite a bit. He seems to make solid decisions and be a caring person.

Jeff was transferred from the regular military to a special military that's kept quiet from the public. He got into great shape after high school after spending that time wishing he was stronger.

Kale doesn't seem to have grown up much after high school. He has a roommate, and they play video games a lot. He's pretty gung ho about being a hero and won't let the other guys forget about the mysterious event that happened when they were younger, and I was glad for that. I HAD to find out what happened and what it meant for them in the present time.

Watching these guys try to put the pieces of their friendship back together was riveting. There was a lot of baggage there they could either work through or choose not to. The characters were well written, the plot well developed, and the action with touches of romance was balanced well.

Something happened when they were in high school, and there were hints here and there that it was a supernatural occurrence of some kind and what it was could help in the zombie apocalypse. I was DYING to know what it was and couldn't wait to find out.

Oh, and of course the zombies! The zombies were scary AF. Some were super fast, others were slow, and you basically didn't stand much of a chance against them. The totally, totally skin crawling, shiver inducing, look-under-your-bed-before-sleeping kind of zombies. Ah, George Romero would be so proud!

If you're a zombie/horror fan, you really need to snag a copy of FOUR. I would NOT steer you wrong! Plus, I'm picking up the second installment asap. :D

About the Author

Zack Scott is the author of THEIR DEADS LIVES, ONE PISSED OFF SHARK, and several short stories he wrote for the 2013 Flash Fiction Challenge, where he made it to the final round.

Although he's visited many areas in the world, Zack has lived in Southern California most of his life. He grew up in Los Angeles, attended undergrad at CSUCI in Ventura County, and completed law school down in sunny San Diego.

More recently, he was living the startup life in Silicon Valley with the 500 Startups accelerator program. He is licensed to practice law in California, but more importantly he likes to hang his pants on his desk chair rather than his closet. When he's not writing stories, Zack can be found in a never-ending wrestling match with his dog Leo or cooking pasta while wearing a Chargers apron.