One Yellow Eye
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
‘Compulsively readable’
OLIVIE BLAKE, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six and Masters of Death
Full of heartbreak, revulsion and black humour, a scientist desperately searches for a cure to a zombie virus while also hiding a monumental secret – her undead husband.
Kesta’s husband Tim was the last person to be bitten in a zombie pandemic. The country is now in a period of respite, the government seemingly having rounded up and disposed of all the infected.
But Kesta has a secret . . .
Tim may have been bitten, but he’s not quite dead yet. In fact, he’s tied to a bed in her spare room. And she’s made him a promise: find a cure, bring him back.
A scientist by day, Kesta juggles intensive work under the microscope alongside Tim’s care, slipping him stolen drugs to keep him docile, knowing she is hiding the only zombie left. But Kesta is running out of drugs – and time. Can she save her husband before he is discovered? Or worse . . . will they trigger another outbreak?
‘Darkly comedic, gruesome and compassionate’
ASHLEY TATE, bestselling author of Twenty Seven Minutes
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Radford's outstanding debut elevates the classic zombie tale through its impressive psychological acuity, deep emotional resonance, and literary prose. In the near future, England is just recovering from a viral zombie outbreak that has been contained only through the eradication of all those infected. Now biomedical scientist Kesta Shelley is tapped for Project Dawn, a London-based research project tasked with developing a vaccine in preparation for future outbreaks. The appointment is a godsend because her husband Tim was among the infected—and she's secretly keeping him alive, breaking all protocol to preserve him in his "undead state" until a breakthrough cure is found. Kesta is well aware that Tim's zombie taint presents the risk of future outbreaks, and the subterfuges she devises to keep his continuing existence under wraps as she and her team race against the clock to find a cure infuse the tale with taut suspense. The novel's heart, though, lies in Radford's wrenching depiction of Kesta's passionate devotion to Tim, and the painful concessions and moral decisions she makes in her care for a victim of a devastating terminal disease. Readers will be moved and thrilled in equal measure by this unique supernatural extravaganza.
Customer Reviews
I liked Shaun of the Dead better.
Author
British broadcast journalist and producer (BBC, commercial radio, The Times etc), book publicist, Faber Academy graduate, who now runs her own film and TV production company. This is her first novel.
In brief
It’s London in the near future. The city is devastated following an epidemic (not a pandemic because it was localised) that turned people into zombies, who then infected others by biting them. The epidemic was suppressed by killing off all the undead in the usual ways (lopping off their heads, or blowing them off, that sort of thing) a few months back, but there’s no cure yet so the authorities (read: dudes in balaclavas and body armour with guns) remain vigilant. Hiding one of the undead in your back room and keeping him alive with transfusions of your own blood among other things is a big no-no, even it’s your husband of 20 years Tim whom you still really love (Tim the Enchanter, perhaps), or what’s left of him (the titular yellow eyes, for example). Protagonist and hospital scientist/cancer detection whizz-kid Kesta (no, me either - see footnote) then joins the secret project, housed for some reason in a tube station, that’s researching the above-mentioned, much-sought-after, cure despite the fact she’s starting to look a tad zombie-like herself, what with all the lying and deceit, and illicit blood donations, and particularly the amount of booze she necks to get her through the day. Long story short, our gal identifies a similar disease that makes snakes got potty (mad as cut snakes, you might say), and yada, yada, more zombies, unapproved gain-of-function research, other stuff that didn’t make sense to me such as our gal having a nanny nap for five days while everything goes t*ts up, all culminating in a parliamentary enquiry, the end.
Writing
The pace was too slow to mask the plot holes (I got the feeling the author lost the plot entirely a couple of times). I found the scientific stuff unconvincing to the point of bizarre, but I guess it’s a zombie novel so I probably shouldn’t be surprised. That having been said, there were a helluva lot more of the undead stumbling about in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. This seemed more like a book about a depressed/grief stricken middle-aged woman to me. Disclaimer: In no way am I likening depressed middle women to zombies, or vice versa.
Footnote
According to the website Ask Oracle, “Kesta is a unique name with intriguing connotations. While its exact meaning is not universally defined, it has been interpreted in various cultural contexts. In certain languages, it signifies comprehension or judgment. This name is more commonly regarded as a feminine name, though it can be used for different genders.”
Or not as the case may be.