Ebook406 pages6 hours
Horizon
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
Of living things there were none. But they carried on. Cass Dollar has survived the worst Aftertime has to offer: civilisation's meltdown, humans turned mindless cannibals, men visiting and revisiting evil upon one another. If Cass can overcome the worst of what's inside her – After all, she was once a Beater herself, until she mysteriously healed – Then their journey may finally end. And a new horizon will be born.
Author
Sophie Littlefield
Sophie Littlefield grew up in rural Missouri and attended college in Indiana. She worked in technology before having children, and was lucky enough to stay home with them while they were growing up. She writes novels for kids and adults, and lives in Northern California. Visit her online at www.SophieLittlefield.com.
Read more from Sophie Littlefield
Garden of Stones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Missing Place Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bad Day for Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aftertime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Bond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebirth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shattered Bond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Guilty One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Discount Noir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Darling Bay Christmas: Three Heartwarming Holiday Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for Horizon
Rating: 4.071428685714285 out of 5 stars
4/5
35 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cass Dollar is a survivor. She has survived addiction, cannibalistic zombies (called beaters) attacking her, turning into a cannabalistic zombie, losing her daughter, and fighting until finding her again. Now Cass is living in a fairly comfortable life in a community called New Eden of fairly friendly people. She doesn't have to fight every day or worry about someone taking her daughter or keep looking over her shoulder. Everything seems to be going fine except she keeps sleeping with Dor despite Smoke being in a coma and she's started drinking again. Everything comes crashing down when beaters start to swarm the shores of the river bordering New Eden and slowly learn to swim. The inhabitants know they are no longer safe and are forced to travel through a dangerous wasteland full of beaters and unsavory people alike. Can Cass's group overcome their weaknesses and survive to be able to find someplace safe to live?This is the third book in the Aftertime series and it's still going strong. Cass Dollar is one of my favorite zombie apocalypse characters because of her strengths, her weakness, and her humanity. She was attacked by beaters when she first got her daughter back because she was an addict deemed unfit to have custody. She has no idea what she did when affected by the beater fever, but she has a huge amount of guilt over who she may have hurt. Now, Cass does physical labor to keep her mind off her troubles in addition to some drinking at night when she's not responsible for anyone. She has doubts and sometimes doesn't feel she deserves such a comfortable life. I admire her strength and her ability to persevere through everything: being a beater, addiction, relapse, and everything this post-apocalyptic life can throw at her. She's also one of the most physically capable people to take on the beaters. New Haven has gotten too comfortable and very few people have the skills she and Dor have to protect themselves. Cass isn't the best or most virtuous person, but she does her best. Most of the people in this world are shades of grey rather than stark black and white.The beaters are frightening creatures who aren't strictly dead, but can sustain crazy amounts of damage to their bodies before succumbing to their wounds. They eat people, themselves, and each other (but only in extreme situations). They don't change too much or at a fast rate, but they slowly learn from their comrades mistakes until they can do things like swim and ambush a group of humans. Their nests are disgusting to behold and their appearance gets less and less human as they age. As always, the disease is transmitted through bites or fluid exchange. The beaters are brutal creatures that match this brutal world.Two things bothered me about the book. One is Cass's total lack of caring that she saw the beaters in huge numbers AND saw them learning to swim without telling anyone. They could have done something to save their haven rather than having a few people die and then relocate when it became too dangerous. I also thought it was weird that she didn't harbor any guilt about that either. The other is the love triangle situation. It's actually a pretty unique one because both men are well characterized and very different. However, I thought her choice was clear pretty early on and it just seemed to drag out too long after that. Other than that, Horizon is an enjoyable but dark read. There are no sappy happy endings for these characters and I appreciate that Sophie Littlefield keeps that realism consistent throughout the series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Sophie Littlefield concludes her Aftertime trilogy in the same way she delivered parts 1 and 2 - realistically and not shying away from writing about pain and loss. This is a series that will break your heart and at the same time you will remain a fan. Horizon begins months after Rebirth ended, there is a slight time lapse and the characters’ positions and relationships have changed. Ms. Littlefield drops the reader in to the book and there is a bit of catching up to figure out what is going on - -not a lot but some. Cass is still damaged, still struggling and still making mistakes. What Sophie Littlefield does so well in this trilogy is write characters who are in pain, who are damaged and who make decisions and act as damaged characters would. But she also writes characters who have tremendous potential – so in a nutshell that is Smoke, Dor, Sammi, Ruthie and Cass. They are all individuals who are hurting, who are damaged but who have amazing potential to overcome their past and do great things. Once it gets going, Horizon is filled with action, drama (in the good way) and revelation after revelation. It was a treat to read. I recommend this series, especially for people who are okay with their characters starting off troubled and much less than perfect but who progress and change over the series. Cass (the main character) will make decisions and choices that feel like a betrayal, but they are real, they are raw and that is what made this series so great.I really like the direction that Horizon went; I can see that it may upset many readers and fans of this series. But I loved it. I am warning you, that if you read ahead there will be spoilers.Smoke was wonderful for Ruthie and Cass during the brief time they had together, but Cass never truly had him. Cass was never Smoke’s priority, he needed to save the world and atone for his past and Cass just didn’t fit into that. Dor I liked from the beginning, I liked him in Rebirth and the resolution of the story was very satisfactory, well at least in part. I understand this is a Harlequin book, but true love in how we experience it in our world now doesn’t seem to be able to fit in to Afertime. But what Dor and Cass have, makes sense. It works for them in Aftertime.I did have some problems with this book, maybe I missed them and am open to hearing about that; but these missing elements bothered me. The storyline about Ruthie being “special” that was introduced in Rebirth was just completely dropped and not revisited. The first 30% of this book was very choppy and at times hard to follow due to the switches in points of view – new points of view that did not exist in the first two books. There were some holes in the storyline, for example how did the traveling party manage to fill all of their vehicles with gasoline? How did the walkers keep with up with the driving vehicles? For much of the end of the book, during the travel part – Ruthie was not included and then would suddenly be included; it just seemed odd, obviously Cass was caring for her during the trip and the care of a 3 year old on a foot travel into the mountains is not easy. Her absence seemed to be an oversight and well, just not complete. Why were the beaters adapting? Why wouldn’t the dangerous plant grow in the new location – if it had been spreading east that seems to imply it could survive colder climates.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Review courtesy of All Things Urban FantasyHORIZON, the final book in Sophie Littlefield’s ground breaking, post-apocalyptic, zombie infested, Aftertime trilogy was everything I hoped and feared it would be. Like the two books before it, HORIZON is a gut-wrenching, emotionally captivating, phenomenally executed book. The writing is sensory on every level. The descriptions of the Afterime world are so exquisitely written that I can even now close my eyes and see the New Eden compound, smell kaysev plants, and taste the liquor on Dor’s lips. The emotions were just as vivid. I was afraid reading this book, genuinely and terribly frightened in certain scenes. And that fear was made all the more palpable because of the bright bursts of hope and even happiness that Cass (and I) experienced. Cass. She is the beating and broken heart of the Afterime series. I can’t begin to think of another character who has transformed as much as she has. She started out as an addict to any and everything. Someone who chose vice over her baby one too many times. We met her as a shambling, almost putrid individual in AFTERTIME, at the edge of her miserable life. Just like the barren world of Aftertime, she had nothing but a tiny spark of desire for redemption. And that’s what she did. Slowly, agonizingly slow in some places, she clawed her way out of shame and the wretchedness that she had existed in. She fell a lot. Stumbled in ways that made me want to scream at her and for her. But she always got back up. She was reborn in REBIRTH, and in HORIZON, she gets to take her first faltering steps as the woman she never hoped she could be. The woman I always knew she was.Because of the masterful writing, Cass and I breathed the same air for three books. When she bled, I bled. When Beaters attacked, I stood right next to Cass with my own knife. When she looked at the two very different men in her life, my heart tore with hers. To say I became invested in Cass (and the other remarkably real characters in this series) doesn’t begin to describe the connection I feel with her and her broken world.Of the 400+ books that have been reviewed on this site, only one series has received perfect 5/5 ratings for every book: the Aftertime series by Sophie Littlefield. I can’t really believe it myself, but each book really is that good, and HORIZON is the perfect conclusion. Shocking revelations, more fantastic character redemption, and best of all hope. I don’t care if you like zombies or not. If post apocalyptic fiction intrigues you or not. This series is for you and everyone else who wants to be riveted by a story and the characters who live it.Sexual Content:References to sex. A scene of sensuality. References to child molestation
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5At the end of REBIRTH I was extremely angry at Cass for what she was doing with Dor. I really liked Smoke and hated her self destructiveness that led to the whole sticky situation. After finishing HORIZON I see that it was the best thing that could have happened to her.HORIZON takes place a few months after the end of REBIRTH. Cass, Ruthie and all the others that she came with have settled into community of New Eden. Things are going well besides that fact that Cass started drinking again (lightly) and she doesn't feel like she really fits in. Behind the curtains Cass has continued her affair with Dor and they cant seem to stop themselves from being drawn to each other. Just when Cass realizes she really wants to be with Dor, Smoke wakes up confusing Cass even more. The Beaters are changing and getting smarter some how and the island becomes unsafe.There are some new characters introduced. The one that sticks out the most is Red. I wont tell you much about him because that would be some major spoiling but I must say that Red was the absolute last person I expected in the story but he fit in extremely well. There is a lot of sacrifice and soul searching in HORIZON. There is a lot of loss and death. The emotions hit an all time high at the end of the book and I was shocked that it went where it did but it really did make sense when all was said and done. Cass is an extremely broken character and goes through a lot but I like that Sophie doesn't magically "fix" her. She ends up in a good place but she is still flawed and broken inside just happier and in a better place. I would actually love to read more about Cassie in the future I think her story is far from finished but if this is the last book then I could be happy at where it all ended.The Aftertime series has definitely been a hit for me and if you like Dystopian or zombie books, this series should be on your bookshelf.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So the story of Cass, Smoke, Dor, Ruthie, Sammi & Co continues, a fragile truce between the participants in the Cass-Smoke-Dor love triangle begins after Smoke awakens from his coma and Cass is caught by Dor's daughter performing relations with Dor. Yeah, not your average post apocalyptic novel.The whole love triangle thing that's been going on for the three books doesn't add much to the story from my perspective and in a way detracts from what otherwise was a pretty decent tale of a group of survivors battling it out against the odds, monsters & others survivors.This being the finale book in the series wrapped up the story pretty well, although the introduction of new characters to advance the plot to the finale was a little cliche. Overall, it was alright.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely *love,love,love* how Littlefield explores the issues of her three main characters, HORIZON is absolutely all I could have hoped for and more out of this series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I never would have thought I'd become a zombie fiction fan, but I am, and Sophia Littlefield with her Aftertime series is a large reason why. This series isn't a slashy, guts and gore horror tale. Well, yes, it's got that in it, there's lots of zombies slaying and slaying zombies with various parts flying around. But there's more depth to it.The underlying theme is how humans react when everything is taken away from them. There are no modern conveniences, friends and family are turning into horrible cannibalistic monsters, every day is a fight for survival. Through Cass Dollar's eyes, we see a myriad of human reactions; cults are formed, killer gangs roam, families hide, and groups gather to form new inter-dependent societies.It's a scary, harsh world that Sophia Littlefield has created. She doesn't shy away from the ugliness that reality can bring. Even her heroes have some darkness inside them, which shades their actions. This only makes the reading more exciting, as anything can happen.Horizon is the third and seemingly last book of the series, unfortunately. I highly recommend the books if you're a post-apocalyptic zombie fan. Read them if you dare!
Book preview
Horizon - Sophie Littlefield
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