Review--A Mad Zombie Party by Gena Showalter

The battle wages on.

Ali Bell and Cole Holland's crew of zombie slayers thought they'd won the war against Anima Industries, the evil company responsible for capturing and experimenting on zombies in an effort to discover the secret to immortality. In the last epic clash, the slayers lost many of their crew and closest friends. But Frosty, the ice man himself, has not recovered from one casualty in particular—the love of his life, Kat Parker.

On the path to self-annihilation, Frosty receives a message from beyond—Kat's spirit returns, insisting he partner with rogue slayer Camilla Marks. Frosty will do anything for Kat. Except that. Camilla is the one who betrayed them all, leading to Kat's death.

But when Anima rises from the grave to become a force the slayers may not have the strength to overcome, Frosty, Camilla and all the slayers will have to work together to survive. And one broken slayer will learn that sometimes, the line between hate and attraction is blurred...and the road to redemption isn't through revenge, but in letting go of the past and grabbing hold of the future.

So after way too long I finally picked up Gena Showalter’s conclusion to the White Rabbit Chronicles! While Ali’s story ended with The Queen of Zombie Hearts, the story at large wasn’t over yet. In A Mad Zombie Party, the story continues this time with Frosty and Milla at the helm.

My memory was sketchy at best as to what happened in this series since I read those as ARCs. Luckily, we get a bit of a recap of what happened in the last book to see where we are now. Milla was a slayer with Ali and her crew, and had to betray her friends by working with Rebecca Smith in order to save her brother, River. Needless to say, no one really forgave her, though no one, River included, truly knew the reasons Milla had to betray everyone.

Now Kat, a ghost aka witness comes to Milla and tells her that she must stay close to Frosty, that a vision from Ali showed her saving Frosty’s life. But since Frosty has been acting more in line with his namesake, you can imagine what he had to say to that. Milla was partly to blame for Kat’s death, though Kat holds no grudges against Milla, but getting Frosty to accept her presence will take some doing. That’s where Kat steps back in, if Frosty lets Milla stay by his side 24/7 and he does good deeds, she will visit him once a day and since Frosty is still heartbroken and missing her, he agrees.

Frosty was pretty much on a path to self-destruction before Milla showed up, trying to replace Kat without replacing her. Spending his nights with random brunette after random brunette, but that gets put to a halt when Kat steps back in however briefly she visits.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about Milla. Perhaps it was better that I couldn’t really remember the series at large, for I felt like I could forgive her far quicker than I would’ve had I read this one right away. Milla has had the hardest of lives, not only did she betray everyone to save her brother, who then shunned her afterwards, but the scars run far deeper than that. She’s broken, and so too, is Frosty. I feel like that helped them to connect with one another, however slowly it happened.

I loved that there was an exceedingly slow burn romance between Frosty and Milla. There was unabashed hatred—on Frosty’s part—and then slowly, other feelings began to develop, there was a sort of acceptance among acquaintance, then something like friendship came about, and then, eventually, the feelings ran deeper and oh my wow. It’s been too long since I’ve read a Gena Showalter book and I forgot how spine-tingling her romances were, because oh my wow!!!

But the relationship development of the story wasn’t the only thing happening, obviously. Everyone believes that Anima is no longer a problem since its leader is without her memories, but it becomes very apparent that something hinky is going on with the zombies, something hinkier than usual when it comes to zombies! And it would seem that the evil organization is not so dead anymore and it may be playing a role in the slayers’ future.

I’ll admit that the pacing to this one was a little slow, but it wasn’t at all bad! I felt like things were always be built up to something more, and they were of course. There were so many things happening in the background in this book, that the pacing didn’t bother me at all. Just life getting in the way of my reading time bothered me! Lol.

What I really enjoyed about A Mad Zombie Party were the extra conclusions that were added in at the end! There are three letters from three integral characters that give you a peek at what happened to everyone in their HEA ending. Though one did present a puzzle I was DYING to know more about, but I think that was just a tiny little teaser that Gena intended! And since I read the B&N special edition, I got another bonus scene of a happy moment among the slayers. Needless to say that this book was perfect!

I had missed Ali and the gang so much over these years and I never even realized how much until I started reading this one! There pretty much wasn’t anything about this book that I would want changed. It was a flawless read from start to finish and I can’t wait to read more of Gena’s books in the future!



Overall Rating 5/5 stars