The Governor is dead. Killed by Lily Caul at the battle for the Prison. Woodbury turns to new leadership as it tries to survive the aftermath.
The Descent
The Walking Dead
by Jay Bonansinga
read by Fred Berman
Thomas Dunne / Macmillan Audio
Lily doesn’t want to be the new leader of Woodbury. Not even with a democratic council by her side. After the losses she’s suffered she wants nothing more than to find a capable leader and settle back into the shadows. But there is a hoard coming – the size of which no one has ever seen – so stepping down isn’t an option yet.
As the survivors in Woodbury divert the swarm a young man travelling alone sees the commotion and follows it back to Lily and her group. It turns out his church group is holed up in a small town, surrounded on all sides by the swarm. Lily makes the decision that to survive they will need all the capable, live humans as they can find and this group could help them so they make out to save Reverend Jeremiah and his flock.
After saving them and incorporating the new group into the settlement of Woodbury it looks like everything is going exactly as Lily would like. She has found a new man for herself – and possibly the family that was stolen from her at the prison – and a new leader for the town in Jeremiah. But not everything is right.
[HUGE SPOILERS] Characteristically, Jeremiah turns out to be a zealot cultist who intends to drink the Kool-Aid, literally, and kill everyone at Woodbury in a dark version of communion. I don’t want to spoil the book for you. Hopefully, you read that huge SPOILERS tag. But in order to understand why I didn’t enjoy this book as much I have to go here. Why are all the Christians introduced in the book – and really in this series – insane cultists? Even Lily’s new crush turns into one in the end. Are there no actual religious people who are good, non-crazy characters? It’s a tired trope. There are so many bad guys in this world already. Adding all the Christians to the list is over-kill.
[SPOILERS STILL] And what’s with another book, another dead lover for Lily? This is the fifth book (four if you combine the Fall set) for Lily and she has had three lovers and all three have been killed. There are a bunch of families in Woodbury who haven’t lost a single loved one. It smacks of by-the-book plotting. Help Lily grow! Have her character develop. Not go through the same things in every book! [END SPOILERS]
I am excited about where the series is headed and I’m glad that the series continues with some of our favorite characters still alive from the original trilogy (quad-igy). I’d like to see more diversity of bad guys, less caricatures and some chances taken with plotlines rather than going back to the same well again and again.
@ashertopia is the Managing Editor of BookGateway.com. He is an avid reader and a lifetime learner. His favorite genres include science fiction, fantasy, as well as theology and Christian living. His personal blog is AshertopiA – a land flowing with milk and honey… and a lot of sticky people.
This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.