Horror Palace

“Slow Burn: Infected book 2,” written by Bobby Adair, is the sequel to the author’s first book in the Slow Burn horror series called “Slow Burn Zero Day.”  Continuing the story of Zed, Murphy and Jerome, “Slow Burn Infected 2” brings the reader to a place where the three main characters are infected and living in a community full of others more severely infected than they.  This book is extremely well written; typos are virtually non-existent and Adair does an excellent job of telling the story.  However, for a horror book, the actual terrifying and gruesome content seems relatively limited throughout the book and in particular at the beginning.

“Slow Burn Infected 2” continues the story of Zed, Murphy and Jerome, all of which are now infected but not to the same extent as those around them who have turned into wild cannibals.  They set out on a mission to find Murphy’s family, taking them through numerous dangerous adventures along the way including terrifying encounters with both infected and uninfected people.  One challenge with the plotline in this book is that it does not offer much insight into what happened to the characters in the previous book, leaving new readers of the series a little confused if they have chosen not to read the books in their proper order.

Throughout the novel, Adair does an exceptional job of writing the book and conveying the story in a way that is fitting to the plotline.  There are very few typos and the ones that are present are extremely minor, making them barely noticeable if the reader is not watching vigilantly for them.  Furthermore, the author uses suitable tone and descriptions in each scene of the story, making his writing style pair effortlessly with the pace of the book and the feelings of the characters.

One thing that I think could be improved upon in this book is the pace and the quantity of horror type content.  There are many parts throughout the book that feel slow or lacking excitement and action.  While not every part of a novel needs to have a reader’s mind racing, there were many areas of the book, such as in the beginning, where it felt as though a certain scene or part was dragging on with little contribution to the story.  Also, there were quite a few large sections of the book that seemed to lack any significant horror content; gruesome images were few and frightful scenes scarce.  Lastly, as was aforementioned, the plot lacked any detailed reference to the first book in the series, leaving readers who do not choose to read in order or read the full series a little bit lost in terms of where the characters have been and why they are in the situation they are currently in.

Overall, “Slow Burn Infected 2,” written by Bobby Adair, is a good sequel to “Slow Burn Zero Day” if you have read it.  The novel is well-written and has a fairly interesting plotline.  However, I would not recommend this book for those who have not read the first book in the series.  This book’s story is not set up to prepare readers with enough information about what has happened to the characters in the past, making it hard for a new reader to care about or fully understand the plot’s depth.  Lastly, this book does not have the sheer quantity of horrific content that I have come to expect from a horror novel.  While the scarcity of terrifying happenings does not bother me, it does make this book deviate in some parts from what a strong horror novel typically looks like.

Reviewed by Jezelle McLeod
Jezelle is a staff writer and horror book critic.
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