We've all played that silly game "would you still love me if ..." haven't we?

London post zombie outbreak, the streets have been cleared and all the infected exterminated by the army, by the police and by their own loved ones. Or have they?

Kesta is keeping a secret in her spare room. Her husband has been bitten and is currently handcuffed to the radiator. The banging noises coming from her flat are indeed not a rouge tumble drier.

A scientist by day, Zombie nurse by night, the clock is ticking to find a cure as Kesta ends up working Project Dawn, the government team of researchers. What can go wrong?

I loved Kesta. She's determined, clever and tenacious and she desperately loves Tim, even if he is a zombie now. I found her really relatable - after all we all think we want to do the right thing, but when it comes down to it, it can be hard to let go. She's also very funny and I laughed out loud at her dry observations.

There were some stand out scenes for me. One such scene was when my heart was simultaneously breaking yet galloping with tension as Kesta and Tim celebrated their anniversary. Intense.

I found the sections about Project Dawn really interesting. The scientific elements were really inspired and added a sense of realism to the whole zombie thing - I mean it made it sense?! Remind me never to go to Madagascar.

One Yellow Eye might on the face of it be a book about Zombie's, but it's actually an astute examination what it means to be human.

"Love is a wound from which you can never heal"

The ending may have made me shed a little tear. Perfect. The author acknowledgements and inspiration behind the book are very emotional and I recommend reading them.

All the stars, and highly recommended, I simply loved it. A propulsive page turner, I devoured it. It's funny, it's entertaining, it's tender - a brilliant story and a really fresh take on the genre.

One Yellow Eye is a fresh take on what has now become an oversaturated and stale genre.

I enjoyed the discovery of the origins of the virus which was both different and realistic. I also liked how the main bulk of the story was set in just two locations which added to a sense of panic, claustrophobia and time running out.

However, I felt the characters were lacking. Whilst I understood Kesta's motivations, I felt her and Tim's relationship wasn't given the detail and back story it deserved. Due to this, I didn't feel as invested in the story as what I would have otherwise. I also found some of her actions to be bizarre such as staying out late and drinking heavily. I found Jess to be an unnecessary, irritating character and would have liked to have seen more of Dudley and Cooke instead - the two best characters who were sadly relegated to side character status.

Add in a flat, rushed ending and overall One Yellow Eye is an enjoyable but slightly disappointing read.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan | Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the ARC.

Book Review: One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford

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…. She’s hiding undead Tim in her spare room. And she’ trying to find a cure to bring him back.

Kesta balances keeping him a secret from her nosey neighbours and doorman alongside her job as a medical researcher by day. Can she save him before he is discovered? or worse… accidentally trigger another outbreak?

Rating: 3.75⭐

I don’t read many zombie books, but this was so easy to binge and is an impressive debut. Although the ending felt rushed, I quite liked how the plot wrapped up.

I liked the scientific elements when she was in the lab trying to work out the cure, and her determination to find out if there’s something more sinister going on at the lab she works at. What kept me reading was the anxiety induced thoughts of if Tim was going to be discovered or if he’d try and run away.

Whilst Kesta is not likeable (and neither are any of the characters really) it didn’t take away from the plot and you still root for her. Her world is very small, and she is either in her flat or in the lab - and with the loss of Tim her world has shrunk further.

She is driven to finding the cure by her love and her obsession means she has tunnel vision and doesn’t really look out for or care about anyone else. You get flashbacks to when they first met, but other than that the depth of their relationship isn’t explored. There are also some plot points that I thought could have been interesting elements if explored further - such as a reporter nosying into Kester’s business.

Radford does well setting the scene in a now desolate London a year after the first zombie appeared with empty streets, suspicious neighbors willing to report you, and cinemas slowly reopening and showing only zombie films 😆

I read this as part of a read along with Bookbreak. This was really fun to read alongside others and discuss as the plot went on.

Would you read this one?

While I enjoyed some of the themes explored, particularly around the limits people will go to protect those they love, I ultimately found Kesta to be a deeply unlikeable character. She goes beyond morally grey into dubious and malicious. Her motives, although at first they seem to be centered in love, they quickly devolved into obsessive control and manipulation. And the love that's supposed to be a driving factor is never really explored on a deeper level. There's no backstory to support it.

Some interesting thoughts and I liked that this took a typical zombie story down another avenue, but ultimately I just didn't like the characters enough to really care.

One Yellow Eye was an interesting take on the zombie genre.
The outbreak is over. The infected have all been exterminated. Life is returning to something like normal in London.

Kesta is a medical researcher with a secret - her undead husband, Tim, locked in their spare room, kept sedated with drugs stolen from the hospital where she works.

The book follows Kesta as she becomes more and more desperate for a cure.

I really liked the ideas behind this, and I was fascinated by the theories of what caused the outbreak. Sometimes it was a bit heavy on the science, but that did lend realism to the story.

I can’t say I liked the characters. Kesta, despite her grief and desperation to find a cure for the virus, mostly came across as selfish. Everything she does is about herself, her desire to not be alone, and not what would really be best for Tim.
It might have been easier to understand and relate to her a little more if we had more insight into their relationship. It really seems like her entire personality has always been based around work and Tim, but we don’t see why the relationship was so wonderful. There’s a flashback to when they first met but we see little else of them before the outbreak so we don’t get to see this love that has forced Kesta to take such drastic steps.

Jess was also pretty unlikeable, although it was clear she was trying to be a friend to Kesta.

The whole book has a desolate feel to it - London is no longer bustling, and people are still living in fear, trying to get over the outbreak. It qlso manages to be very claustrophobic, with Kesta spending most of her time either in the lab or in the spare bedroom with her undead husband.

3.75 stars, rounded up.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

A profoundly human and fascinating twist on the zombie genre, ONE YELLOW EYE is a story of love, ambition and morality all in one tense, page-turning package. Leigh Radford has managed to balance the science of a pandemic with the tension of a thriller, I was completely captivated and rooting for our protagonist, while also secretly hoping she’d get caught because she was clearly on the brink of insanity. The ending was devastating but so perfect. I couldn’t have loved this book more - a favourite of 2025!

A fun zombie story that just slightly unhinged in the way it looks at the lengths you’ll go to for someone you love. Gory but not splatter punk. Horror but not scary. Full of dark humour, this was a great read.

Starting off strong, this book was fun, entertaining and gory all at once. I really enjoyed Kesta as a character and sympathised with her and her grief. However, around the 60% mark I found myself losing interest. The plot seemed to drag and Kesta’s actions became irrational and irritating. The medical jargon was interesting and I thought the virus itself was genius, how it mutated and grew. But the cure was found seemingly quickly with no repercussions or real world effects. This was a book of two halves, some it was clever and entertaining whereas other parts were boring and unnecessary.

A weirdly beautiful story about the lengths you will go to for the ones you love. Gave big big pandemic vibes and the descriptions of gross zombie stuff satisfied the zombie itch without being too body horror.

In the midst of a zombie pandemic, Kesta has to hide her husband's situation as a secret.
While not all the plot points added up, added to the story, or intrigued me, I was drawn into this book because I found it witty!
I liked the underlying humour and the subtexts - it is a book where you can find many different layers, and either enjoy the surface level story, which is engaging, or perhaps find some more gems in it like I did.
3.5 stars rounded up because of its high potential.

This was wonderful! Thoroughly enjoyed and thought it was very unique in its take. Devastatingly sad at times, but overall hopeful regarding humanity.

One Yellow Eye follows Kesta who has her husband Tim chained to her bed...because he's a zombie and she isn't prepared to let him go just yet until she finds a cure.

An intriguing premise which felt like a cross between the Walking Dead (especially the episode where they are trapped in the CDC lab) and an unusual rom com.

I really enjoyed Kesta's discovery on how the virus came about which was fascinating and a little scary as to how easily these things can potentially happen.

This was a claustrophobic read, only really set in two places, Kesta's apartment or the lab. This added to the darkness and really showed how Kesta was spiralling out of control.

I'm not sure how I would have liked it to end, but it felt a little flat for me and I think I was expecting more of a gut punch to hit me with all the emotions but it just never came.

What would you do if there was a zombie apocalypse and your partner was bitten? Well Kesta decides to keep her husband, Tim, safely handcuffed to their spare bed while she tries to find a cure. Sounds like a difficult task, luckily Kesta works at the public hospital in just the right field of work to find something that might cure Tim. In the meantime she'll try anything she can get her hands on, even if it is locked away, in her NHS laboratory.

This is a story about love, hope, grief and desperation with a generous dollop of British stiff upper lip and dark humour. Set in London after a zombie pandemic has been cleaned up and life is beginning to go back to normal, but will it ever be the same?

3.5 I was really excited to dive into this one, hoping for something unique, fun, and punchy like The Last One At The Party. While it offered some fresh explanation and lore about zombies, it was much slower and more sad than I was expecting based on the blurb and cover, which suggests some degree of humour and fiasco.

It’s gonna be tricky to talk about this in detail without spoilers. All possible spoilers have been removed here but are hidden in spoiler tags in my links.

What worked for me:
🧟‍♀️ I liked that the author didn’t (re)use COVID-19 pandemic language: this is something I notice a lot in fiction (I am not someone who enjoys reading about the recent pandemic in fiction) and appreciated the use of alternative/different language (curfew, infected, etc.)
🧟‍♀️ The sense of claustrophobia between the apartment and the lab was well done.
🧟‍♀️ I really liked the fresh take on the virus origin! It felt new while also being plausible.
🧟‍♀️ I appreciated that the infected had physical limitations (too often they’re portrayed as super fast, indestructible, with super human strength which doesn’t seem realistic).
🧟‍♀️ While her characterization wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped, I noticed Kesta’s development arc.

What I wasn’t so keen on:
🧟‍♀️ The characters never really got out of second gear for me. I get that Kesta loved Tim but all we see is her desperate attachment. We don’t really explore their history, connection, or what their 19 year marriage was like (until this was revealed, I thought they’d been together for mere months? We jump from an incomplete how-they-met interlude to glossing over basically the entire pre-infection relationship). I also didn’t understand her actions: we kept hearing about how devoted she was to Tim but she was constantly risking his safety and getting caught by going out for meals, keeping irregular hours, being drunk all the time. 
Similarly, I didn’t feel a strong connection between Jess and Kesta. Jess annoyed me as a character: she was vacuous, needy, and didn’t understand boundaries. The characters that did show complexity: Cooke, Dudley, and the lab manger, were firmly relegated to ‘side characters’ and every single one of their relationships to the main character was trope-y and predictable.
🧟‍♀️ Despite Kesta’s best efforts, she has incredible luck and timing. I felt that a lot of the stupid situations she got herself into were only resolved with sheer dumb luck or parking established characterization when it was convenient for plot purposes.
🧟‍♀️ I didn’t like reading about the animal testing.

About the ending…
There's no good way to end a book like this where a binary yes/no is basically the only way forward. <spoilers removed>

There were a lot of outstanding questions that distracted me throughout the book and after I'd finished. <spoilers removed>