Zombie, Ohio

December 6, 2010
Kenemore's debut is a darkly humorous depiction of one zombie's struggle for enlightenment and redemption. When college professor Paul Mellor recovers consciousness near the wreck of his car, he finds himself in an apocalyptic landscape populated by desperate survivors and the walking and hungry undead. Soon Paul discovers that he is a zombie himself, albeit an unusually intelligent one, and that the crash that killed him was orchestrated. Determined to track down his murderer while dodging resentful breathers, Mellor struggles against his yearning to eat the brains of the living. His lapses are epic, even for a zombie, but nothing compared to the excesses of the living who see the apocalypse as license to indulge their worst impulses. There's plenty to satisfy zombie fans who've come to expect some philosophy with their gore.

December 15, 2010
George Romero, director of the original Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, should snap up the rights to this novel. It has everything: zombies, gore, brain-eating, love, death, even a murder mystery. All of it revolves around Peter Mellor, who wakes up after a car accident a little discombobulated. Even though the country is in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, it takes Peter a while to figure out that he is now one of the moving cadavers because, unlike your typical zombie, he can talk, reason, and, well, pass for human. As hes trying to come to terms with his new undead state, reunite with his girlfriend, and figure out who was responsible for his car accident, Peter winds up the leader of a zombie horde and the target of human rednecks and intense military scrutiny. Kenemore, author of the humor books The Zen of Zombie (2007) and Z.E.O. (2009), combines humor with horror in a way that is guaranteed to make any zombie fan stand up and shout, Braaaaaains!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)