Rough Reckoning

Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill


* ARC read via Around The World Tours

3 out of 5 gnomes

Zombies, cowboys, and a touch of science make for a very interesting read.  I didn't know what to think going into the story just that a story about cowboys and zombies sounded like quite an awesome concept.

There are three points of view in the story consisting of Jett, Gibbons and White Fox.  It was great having these very different points of view.  I just wish that while reading that more of the past of all three had been explained.  There are just tidbits that are dropped and I hope that some of those pieces are picked up in later books.

The story reads like an old fashioned western and is set in the year 1867, the author even has a type of warning at the front saying that they wrote how people talked back then so some words that may be offensive now weren't back then.

The chapters are so very dense to get through and there is a lot of description.  I don't know, maybe I just have book ADHD because of all the books with short chapters I've been reading, but it seemed to take forever for a chapter to end.

The story starts off strong with Jett, a girl from the south who dresses like a boy while she searches for her brother.  She was on the losing side of the war of course and the fall out from that has led her to searching for her brother, the only family she has left.  She happens to stop at a town right before it's attacked by zombies.  This of course causes chaos and leads her to meeting Gibbons and White Fox.

Gibbons is a strange character and much different than the everyday women of the time period.  She's a scientist and very into women's rights and researching.  If there is an answer Gibbons will find it, she's kind of like the Agent Scully to Jett's more Mulder-like persona.  Her inventions are great especially the steam powered carriage.

White Fox is the one narrator that the reader learns the least about.  He's the cool enigmatic guy who was raised by Native Americans and is now on a mission that coincides with his running into Gibbons and Jett.  It looks like he and Jett may eventually end up together, he and her just have a lot of business to attend to first.

The big bad of the story was kind of disappointing because you know almost right away who it is but not quite how this evil-doing is getting done.  The zombies though were extremely creepy and made for some intense minions.

I really wish that there had been more of a resolution at the end, as is though it just looks like a set up for a sequel where hopefully more answers will be given.  Overall a pretty good read and future installments of the series should be promising.