Title: Strain Main Characters: Rhys Cooper & Darius Murrell Author: Amelia C. Gormley Genre: Dystopian, Post-apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Romance & Heavy Kink (Warning: Dubious Content) Length: 375 pages Publisher: Riptide Publishing Date of Publication: February 17th 2014 Story: In a world with little hope and no rules, the only thing they have to lose is themselves. Rhys Cooper is a dead man. Cut off from the world since childhood, he’s finally exposed to the lethal virus that wiped out most of the human race. Now his only hope for survival is infection by another strain that might confer immunity. But it’s sexually transmitted, and the degradation he feels at submitting to the entire squad of soldiers that rescued him eclipses any potential for pleasure—except with Darius, the squadron’s respected, capable leader. Sergeant Darius Murrell has seen too much death and too little humanity. He’s spent a decade putting plague victims out of their misery and escorting survivors to a safe haven he can never enjoy. He’d rather help Rhys live than put him down, so when Rhys can’t reconcile himself to doing what’s necessary to survive, Darius is forced to save Rhys in spite of himself. But with each passing day, it looks less and less likely that Rhys can be saved. Which means that soon Darius might have to put a bullet in the head of the one person in years who reminds him of what it means to be human. Me and this book: This is not suited for everybody, but it is for me. These are my type of books, books that are all about the noncom and dubcon content. I’m not sure why but I always find myself attracted to these kinds of books. Actually, it might sound crazy but whenever I see a book that was published from Riptide I get this fuzzy feeling inside, like the butterflies in my stomach gets all flustered and shit. And that was exactly what happened when I read the blurb of this book. I was immediately drown to it like a moth to a flame. I could already tell that it would be one of my instant faves and it was. Yey for dubious content! Review: How do I even begin to describe this? This whole new futuristic world that was built was unlike any other. To make it simple, a deadly virus has spread around the world, turning its innocent victims into zombie like creatures that crave for human flesh. And once infected with it the only way to survive was to be infected by another virus, there’s a catch though, the percentage of it working is much greater if it’s sexually transmitted done multiple times and with multiple partners as well. That’s one way of explaining it I guess. After years and years of living afraid and hidden, Rhys was finally infected. But it didn’t matter to him at that time, what mattered was that he was able to lure away these creatures from his family. Running and fighting, it was unmistaken that he was losing, with too many of them to fight on his own, he was accepting his death before it even happened. But it didn’t. Just in time Sergeant Darius came and saved him from his instant death. But that didn’t do Rhys any good though because with his direct contact with the infected, he was already doomed. The only way to save him though was in a way too dehumanizing and degrading for anyone for that matter and especially to Rhys. But in order to live, to survive, it must be done. Not going into glorious detail on what everything was about, I shall give props for Ms. Amelia for making it so believable that I found myself wondering that maybe if this really happened in real life, her solution might be possible. Alongside the magnificent world building of the story, the effort to took to explain to the readers the whats and whys of this book without it being too much was incredibly done right. It was described so well that the readers might even tend to agree with the degrading action that must be done to save Rhys life, even if Rhys himself questions it. That was how good it was explained. Warning for all readers out there, this book has some heavy dubious content in every page and it saddens me that mostly all the negative comments about this book was centered on that. But let’s face it, this book was meant to be that way. And for me and all the others who loved it as well, it was brilliantly made. The gruesome and erotic scenes were spot on and detailed that it was both exhilarating and disturbing to read. And besides, all these scenes were needed to keep the story going, these scenes were what made this story come alive. And if that’s not your thing then please don’t read it, we’ve had enough of people commenting and saying they didn’t fancy this because of the dubious content. The whole story itself was good as well, from the beginning to the end it will give the readers the thrill of excitement of not knowing what will happen next. Put all the erotic scenes aside, the story had a lot of relationship factor between friends, comrades, and enemies as well. In the end, survival was what’s holding people together. Don’t be fooled by the erotic theme, this book actually has some depth in between the pages, especially at the end. It’ll definitely catch the readers off guard with its intense and dark twists and turns. As well as the emotional value this book surprisingly contained. And because I’m biased and I love books like this I’ll give this book one hundred stars. |
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February 2016
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