GR Richards, $0.99
Horror Romance, 2014 (Reissue)

The issue of Mace Was Here that I purchased stated that it was first published by Torquere Press in 2013 thus saving me the time needed to look up and check whether this title is new or not. How nice of the author. I’m not sure whether this edition has been revised in any way, though.

In the setting of this story, there’s a virus that turns people into vicious zombies, and poor Nathan. The love of his life, Mace, is infected. By right, he should turn Mace in to the government, but he can’t do that to the only man he has ever loved! So…

Well, the author decides to do a flashback, to show me how these two have sex for the first time and their post-coital, rushed declaration of me-like-you, and then, that’s it. Nate hopes that one day Mace will remember their love, and despite having no indication that that day is that day, decides to do what he always does and unchains Mace so that they can have breakfast together. Oh, don’t worry, he has a tranquilizer gun at hand, but me, I have no payoff to reading this story and hence am feeling a bit annoyed.

Sure, it’s only $0.99, but still, can’t the author add on a few more paragraphs? Make that last scene a bit more cliffhanger-y? The romance, as it is, isn’t the most fleshed out, so I’m neither moved by nor invested in the whole thing. My reaction by the end of the story is “I hope that moron gets eaten!” – which I doubt is something the author intended in the first place.

The writing is solid, hard-hitting here and there, but it’s wasted on the literary equivalent of being stranded high and dry.