Rebirth. Sophie Littlefield

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      Praise for Sophie Littlefield’s

       AFTERTIME

      “Stephen King’s The Stand in a bra and panties…. The illegitimate love child of McCarthy’s The Road and Romero’s Dawn of the Dead…Aftertime is a highly palatable amalgam of post-apocalyptic fiction, romance, and horror. Hard-core fans of post-apocalyptic fiction will love Aftertime. Romance fans will embrace it. Aficionados of zombie fiction will be stunned.”

      —Paul Goat Allen, BarnesandNoble.com

      “Littlefield turns what could be just another zombie apocalypse into a thoughtful and entertaining exploration of many themes…. Littlefield has a gift for pacing, her adroit and detailed world-building going down easy amid page-turning action and evocative, sensual, harrowing descriptions that bring every paragraph of this thriller to life.”

      —Publishers Weekly, starred review

      “The fresh, original world-building solidly supports the unfolding narrative and Littlefield’s compelling writing will keep readers turning pages late into the night to find out what happens next. Outstanding!”

      —RT Book Reviews, Top Pick

      “Wildly original… Sophie Littlefield’s Aftertime is a new generation of post-apocalyptic fiction: a unique journey into a horrifying world of zombies, zealots and avarice that examines the strength of one woman, the joy of acceptance and the power of love. A must read.”

      —J.T. Ellison, author of Where All the Dead Lie

      “I’m geeking out of my mind after reading Aftertime because I felt almost the same way reading it as I do watching The Walking Dead: Captivated. Aftertime is hands down the best zombie book I’ve read all year. Hide your wife, hide your kids, and hide your husbands ’cause they’re eating everybody out here.”

      —All Things Urban Fantasy

      “[A] gripping read; sympathetic characters operate in a detailed, realistically shattered echo of modern society, and the emotional journey is as harrowing and absorbing as the physical one.”

      —Paperback Dolls

      “Alternately creeped me the hell out and broke my heart repeatedly.”

      —The Discriminating Fangirl

      “Littlefield excels at keeping the momentum going and she knows how to inject a huge beating heart into any story, even one in which humanity is barely alive.”

      —Pop Culture Nerd

      Rebirth

      Sophie Littlefield

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For M, searching for four-leaf clovers

      Contents

      Chapter 01

      Chapter 02

      Chapter 03

      Chapter 04

      Chapter 05

      Chapter 06

      Chapter 07

      Chapter 08

      Chapter 09

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      01

      THE FIRST SNOWFLAKE AFTERTIME WAS LIKE NO snowflake that ever fell Before. Cass nearly missed it, kneeling on the matted dead kaysev plants, their woody stalks poking into her skin through the thick leggings she wore beneath her dress. Her eyes had been closed, but Randall had gone on too long, the way people do when they are trying to say something meaningful about someone they didn’t know well. After a while Cass grew restless and began to look around, and there, not two feet away, the snowflake drifted past in a lazy swoop as though it had all the time in the world.

      Cass licked her cracked lips, could almost feel how the flake would melt on her tongue. Until that moment she didn’t realize she had actually doubted whether snow would ever return, much as she’d doubted whether rats or sparrows or acorns or moths would return. She wished she could nudge Ruthie, or even Smoke—she knelt between the two, in the place of honor up front—but a funeral was still a funeral, and so she stayed as still as a stone.

      Maybe by the time they were finished, there would be more snowflakes. A flurry, a drift: the gunmetal sky looked grudging to Cass; there would be no storm today. Besides, the temperature would rise well above freezing by noon. These early snows never lasted long.

      Next to her, Ruthie sneezed. Cass СКАЧАТЬ