ARC Review: Dead Reckoning

Title: Dead Reckoning
Author(s): Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill
Genre: Western, Steampunk, YA, Paranormal
Release Date: June 5th

See it at Goodreads


Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why? This gunslinging, hair-raising, zombie western mashup is perfect for fans of Cowboys vs. Aliens and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.


I almost didn’t write a review for this one. It’s one of those books that just left me at a bit of a loss of words and I still don’t know what all quite to say to it. For me, everything was just…meh.

As a huge zombie fan (hurry up and come back Walking Dead!), and sometimes even into the western thing, I thought for sure I’d love this mash-up of zombies meeting the wild west, but there really wasn’t anything that spectacular about Dead Reckoning. It didn’t wow me and I was left in the end feeling a little let down.

Here’s the good:

There are fantastic details and the action kicks off in the beginning with a bang. Zombies and the wild west mix together insanely well--much better than I’d ever thought they could.

Sometimes, though, I had trouble keeping up with everything going on and the characterization didn’t feel very developed to me. I did like Jett at times, but I was often sidetracked by her rough attitude, and wanted to know MORE about her situation with her missing brother, which felt unresolved as well. It does seem there’s going to be a sequel, and I wish this had just been a stand-alone, but that’s just my opinion. I didn’t like the religious undertones, but thought this other perspective to the storyline (which I am keeping to myself in fear of being too much of a spoiler perhaps) was interesting. It was just a constant back and forth for me of likes and dislikes. Haha.

I also did enjoy the mythos the authors used for the zombies.

I don’t really have much else to say. This is one of my shorter reviews, I guess. I didn’t hate it…after all, it is zombies and the wild west, but it didn’t meet the expectations I’d had when I started unfortunately. I’ll leave this one up to others to make their own opinions on.