Review: The Poison Balance by Lucy Ghose

 The Book:

‘When the rains fell, the world burned…’

After a childhood spent in the foster care system, failed PhD student Amy Weston attracts trouble wherever she goes. Acid rain is destroying London’s trees, brain lesions are turning once-harmless pets into killer dogs, and her new work colleague, Professor Joel Harket, is the most infuriating man she has ever met.

But when the media continue to insist that autumn has simply come early, and humans begin to experience the same symptoms as the killer dogs, Amy must work alongside Joel in order to convince the world of the seriousness of the situation, before it is too late.

From the UN Air Health summit in Beijing to the abandoned tunnels beneath the city of London, Amy and Joel search for answers to prevent the end of the world, and as Nelson’s Column crumbles and zombie-like ‘howlers’ wreak havoc worldwide, they discover that the only way to survive the apocalypse is to set aside their differences… and learn to trust each other.

 

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a really good and entertaining romp. The novel starts off very much as a technothriller. We meet Amy and Joel, two very different people who at first appear mis-matched. The concern is the sudden increase in acid rain which is having all sorts of unexpected effects and Amy and Joel team up to try to investigate this phenomenon.

The story thus far feels very much as I would expect from its billed genre of eco thriller and I was quickly hooked as this sort of thing is right up my street.

But things rapidly shift. The acid rain causes anyone it touches to turn into a howler. These are effectively zombies and before long we are caught up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse which Amy and Joel are trying to survive, find a cure and save the world. All the while their feelings for one another are growing and these two polar opposites are inevitable drawn together.

The acid rain is a really original method of zombification and the book is a lot of fun.

If you like a good zombie apocalypse with a good dollop of romance thrown in them this is the book for you.

Recommended.