There's a lot to like about this story of an isolated village surrounded by zombies. The religious control of the Sisterhood is extremely interesting, a sort of gender-flipped throwback reminiscent of The Chrysalids, and the consequent conflict is mostly based around power and control. Mary, the character at the centre of the narrative, is pretty much trapped by geography and consumption into either an unwanted marriage or a life of creepy religious isolation, and unsurprisingly she doesn't much want either. Equally unsurprisingly, a third option appears, and she and a small band of survivors wend their way through the increasingly bloody forest. The zombies are out for human flesh and they're pretty horrifying - actually the whole story is one long claustrophobic stretch of tension.

For the most part. Because interwoven with this excellently done horror is one of the most tedious love triangles in existence. Both Harry and Travis are weak-minded, vacillating individuals and there was barely half a page on either of them before I was wishing them both a long and drawn out death. Frankly, Mary's constant moaning on about them made me wish it for her sometimes as well. That love triangle is solely responsible for my 3 star rating. Without it, this book would be 4. Credit where it's due, though, by the end the triangle is comprehensively and permanently demolished - I understand there are sequels to this book, and I look forward to reading them on the grounds that, unlike the zombies, said triangle is incapable of being reanimated.