Yes, indeed, Sadie Walker Is Stranded: on an island, no less, with the few remaining survivors from a last-minute desperate escape by boat from post-Outbreak Seattle. After her boyfriend betrayed her to kidnap her nephew for money, Sadie killed the boyfriend in the resulting tussle, somehow managing to get Shane back while running for her life from a hole in the wall that, until now, kept the undead out. Oh, yeah, we should mention... there are zombies everywhere.
Madeleine Roux's follow-up to her first novel, Allison Hewitt Is Trapped, takes place just a little bit later in the same post-zombie-apocalypse Pacific Northwest setting. Sadie Walker is an illustrator living in the barely safe environs of Seattle, where she knows that, regardless of zombies, the real threat is from the humans around her. An attempt to escape by water is cut horribly short when the boat's captain decides to replace the rapidly dwindling food reserves by fishing. He is pulled under by the fishing rod and ripped to pieces by the zombies who--surprise!--are walking under the ocean.
The ragtag party is a mess of shaky alliances and barely concealed mistrust by the time they beach the boat on the nearest island--only to find another group, much better provisioned and organized, already there. The two groups join forces, straining the already tense social connections. Of course, Sadie falls for the big strong ex-cop leader, but the romance is handled sparingly and realistically. Roux serves up several surprises along the way, with nicely written dialogue and characterization to complement her fast-paced plot. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor