Review by Diane Matson

BEYOND THE NIGHT - 2010 by Joss Ware Avon ISBN 0061734012

If you love romance novels as much as you enjoy a good horror book, this sucker will take you to Nirvana. How much you enjoy BEYOND THE NIGHT depends on your tolerance for Harlequin Romance material.

You see, the action and characters are good, but there’s an extremely annoying amount of trashy romantic novel writing as well. Personally, I prefer my “heaving bosoms” attached to a staked vampire, shrieking while its blood shoots into the air.

The story is about a handful of men who walked into a cave for some adventure and adrenaline. While inside, the cave shook, boulders crashed, electricity crackled, and then everyone passed out. “The next day” on their way out of the cave, they met Simon (also in the cave during the quake). When they left the cave, they discovered it was 50 years later. Nature grew over the cities and roads. Most of the population was gone. At night the gangas come out, seeking human flesh to feast on. They are zombies with orange glowing eyes, gray and decaying skin, more strength than the average man, and nothing other than a mutilating blow to their brain kills them.

BEYOND THE NIGHT starts six months later, with the men grieving friends and family, still struggling to figure out what happened to the world because they can’t find anyone besides them who was alive 50 years ago. The outside world wasn't’t the only thing that changed. Elliott Drake, an ER doc, emerged with the power to see inside the human body, like an X-ray or MRI. Half a year later, he discovers he also has the power to not only heal broken bones, but transfer the break to someone else (who is then stuck with it, because for some reason the healing for that exact injury only “takes” once). His friend Quent left the cave able to touch any object and “see” its history. Lenny could sense water.

Elliot learned he could heal while working on a female stranger (Jade), who literally rode in on a horse and helped the guys save a group of teenagers from the gangas. From the moment they lay their gorgeous eyes on each other’s perfect bodies, an epidemic of erotic descriptions and character thoughts carry on all through the damn book.

While examining her, Elliott fights away thoughts of her smooth skin and notices she has a really hot body. Jade utters her first words in a low, husky voice. Every time they look or think about the other person, lust is in the air. It’s not earned and detracts from the interesting action.

Not far into the book, of course Joss mentions that Elliott’s “better hung” than his friends. As if this was a good thing for the poor woman. This myth really pisses me off. If a larger penis meant women felt more pleasure, then women would be screaming with ecstasy, rather than agony, during childbirth.

Elliot hasn't been near a woman for 50 years. Jade has been abused so she doesn't trust men and is a control freak. Naturally, as soon as Jade and Elliott’s eyes meet, they instantly feel a strong rush of passion for each other, which they fight off and give in to throughout the book. The romance is forced down the reader’s throat. And every “good guy” has a fat-free, well honed body, amazing good looks, and acts heroic as often as possible. Made me want to throw the book at the wall every time I read some ridiculous, out of place “romantic” insertion. The book is infected with it. I wish zombies would eat out the romantic bits, because the rest of the story is actually a pretty good read. Aside from the romantic crap, I enjoyed the various characters and obstacles they were confronted with.

The gist of the plot is how Elliot, Jade and their friends join forces in the city of Envy (formerly Las Vegas, NV) to fight the Strangers. Thanks to special crystals that are imbedded in the skin over their collarbone, they are immortal - nothing kills them and they are stronger and faster than the average human. Unlike the gangas, they don’t mindlessly start munching on the nearest human. Instead they hire bounty hunters to kidnap women and children for mutilating, tortuous experiments. Most of the human race is oblivious (since the zombies can’t talk and the Strangers kill all witnesses). Jade is the only one who ever escaped (after three torturous years). To keep things interesting, the secret resistance against the Strangers gets complicated by the gangas and diminished technology.

I enjoyed the action almost as much as I hated the bad romance. Weirdest book I've ever read. Eventually I was so annoyed I didn’t care if the resistance won or got eaten by some hungry gangas.

2 Bookwyrms

This review copyright 2010 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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