Thanks to Matador and NetGalley for the opportunity to read 'Of Starlight and Plague' by Beth Hersant.

I think there's a good book in here (or possibly even a series) desperate to get out but in all honesty it felt like a draft rather than a final version and I believe would've benefited from some strong editorial intervention.

The story's a good one, a variation on the apocalyptic plague/pandemic, so timely at the minute obviously, and the individual pieces - the setup, the Caribbean island, the New Orleans bit, and the rural Pennsylvania chunk - are all very engaging as stand alone pieces. I'm giving this three stars instead of two because I enjoyed those individual pieces and thought the characters were well done. The author wasn't afraid to make the tough choices with characters in order to move the individual pieces on and keep as real as possible.

For me the main problem is that they don't really knit together very well beyond all of them being linked to the virus. To give the benefit of the doubt you could say that they're all stages in the evolution of the story and the virus but they all seem utterly independent of the next piece. I kept waiting for the New Orleans element to come back into the story at some point, but it doesn't. We lose a really interesting and intriguing strand into the aether. The introduction of the voodoo element was one of the more original elements of the novel. Ironically, although I said above that an editor was needed, maybe a longer book with more judicious editing might've made for a more satisfying story or some structural work could've set it up for a strong series.

Another thing an editor could've helped with is that the novel has a very intrusive narrator who continually got in the way of the story and the characters. There are constant interruptions of the flow of the narrative with 'as X says in X' where the narrator (or through the narrator, one of the characters) recalls and relates - in full - some quote from a historical source, report, film, novel, etc. It feels like the author had done a lot of research for the novel and is, by golly, going to make that obvious. In one particularly intrusive passage late on in the book, in the space of a page and a half while explaining self preservation (which most of us innately understand, in any case) we were served up quotes/references about self preservation from (1) the APA Dictionary of Psychology, (2) Sigmund Freud, (3) Nigel Nicholson/Harvard Business Review, (4) Yann Martel in "Life of Pi," and (5) Robert Carlyle’s character in "28 Weeks Later."

One of the things I did like about this book was that, even though it was obviously a portrait of a society disintegrating, it wasn't completely without hope for the future. Although the author didn't set it up for a sequel I could see this being the basis for a series along the lines of James Howard Kunstler's 'World Made by Hand' novels. It might also give the author a chance to revisit this first instalment to tidy it up a bit and maybe reposition the New Orleans thread a little so that it could re-enter the story in a later instalment. Maybe the character of Owen eventually chooses to follow his initial desire and make the long journey to see if his parents survived - there are all sorts of possibilities.

I'd certainly give a sequel a chance but would hope that some of the structural issues were resolved and that the narrator was much less intrusive.

Super rabies

I enjoyed this apocalyptic tale about a rampant super rabies virus. It starts with how the virus was created and then how it became a deadly pandemic.

I especially liked the stories of the survivor groups. In this era of pandemics, this story hits close to home and is well written.

I received this book from Matador Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

This was...a strange book. It's like the author couldn't decide what she was trying to write. I really wanted to like this, as the synopsis hit all the right buttons with me, but the novel itself just ended up a failure for me.

One major annoyance was the insertion of quotes from every damn source the author could come up with. Their were, simply put, way too many. It broke up the flow of the book to wade through two or three selections of other writing on every page. Secondly, the narrative voice was off-putting and wandered all over. It kicked me out of the story so many times so read something like "(character) faced down the threat before her and knew she would make it through. Little did she know she was wrong." or "(characters make a decision) You might think you wouldn't make a similar decision in such a situation, but who really knows what would happen to morality at a time like this?"

There were some interesting bits that were brought up and then quickly discarded. The New Orleans voudou practitioner was so intriguing! I wanted to follow along on her story as she did her best to save people from the encroaching zombies. Then, abruptly, her part ended and we never followed through on what happened to her people. Instead, the story switches to another group that is, actually, kinda boring and stays with them for the majority of the book.

One more tiny little thing. If you are writing a book that is set primarily in the United States, please be sure to change all instances of 'petrol' to 'gas' and 'mobile' to 'cell phone'.

Overall, this was disappointing. I would not recommend.

A fast entertaining read. A man made plague runs amok and the desperate run for survival. Read it in one night of creepy immersion. So good.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc

I couldn't help it as soon as I seen I was approved for this ebook I had to jump straight into it.

Of Starlight and Plague by Beth Hersant
Was a great quick story.
Which I'm honestly surprised I enjoyed this book alot more than I originally thought.
I really enjoyed the pacing and the slow-tidbits of reveals.
It was wild and exciting and above all fascinating.
This was a one sitting read and honestly I didn't want it to end so soon.
I really got into it.
The descriptive sense was also quite brilliant, the subtle unnerving tones building the fear, some of it visceral and sudden, other parts quietly disturbing.
This novel shows us another side of what "could" happen.
Maybe not this exact plot, but between natural disasters, unpredictable disease, and social unrest we could be teetering on the edge. And that's what I love about these books!
Overall, A fantastic story. And I hope to see more of Beth.

Matador and NetGalley,
Thank you for this eARC.
I will post and tag to my platforms closer to pub date!

Of Starlight and Plague by Beth Hersant

A good read which is very relatable to what is going on now. Fully believable on how things could go wrong if the very worse type of virus were to take hold .
Great characters , and plot line. Would read other titles by this author.