NIGHT BETRAYED – Joss Ware
The Envy Chronicles , Book 4
Avon
ISBN: 978-0-06-201863-2
February 2011
Paranormal Romance

Envy, Nevada and Yellow Mountain – 2060

Most people have perished from the earth after the change.  On Yellow Mountain , Selena is known as the death lady; she helps people when there is no hope of their survival to have a serene crossing.  Frank is an elderly man who works a farm within the enclosure of their ranch.  It is a large, safe, walled area where the gangas, zombie-like monsters who eat flesh, cannot penetrate.  A dying man with dragon tattoos is brought to Selena from outside the walls.

Envy is the largest known settlement and has a secret subterranean computer room.  Theo and Lou are twins, in their seventies, computer geeks.  Theo has not aged since the change fifty years ago.  He goes on a mission, is shot, and cannot be found by his friends; he's in the hands of the death lady. Selena gets guidance from her spirit guide and places her crystal on the eye of the tattooed dragon.  Theo awakens after dying; he wonders why he was saved…for what purpose?  Theo has an integrated circuit embedded near his hip which sends out energy.  He is able to communicate telepathically with his twin to let him know that all is well.  He is amazed to find that he is at Brad Blizek's ranch, a man well known for his computer technology years ago.  When he discovers that there is a room filled with old technological hardware from Blizek, he can hardly wait to get his hands on it.

Selena often sneaks outside the walls to help the zombies who moan in the night searching for a man named Remington Truth.  She feels sorry for them trapped without recourse, but she must be careful, because they try to kill and eat her.  With her crystal, she can help them cross over.  Theo is concerned and attracted to her, but she thinks he is a young man of thirty when she is fifty.

Who makes up the Cult of Atlantis, the elite group of wealthy humans who had destroyed most of the world fifty years ago and changed it?  How was Blizek involved with them?  Will Theo find answers on the old equipment left behind?  Who are the bounty hunters?  What are they looking for and whom are they working for?

The world is a very strange and gruesome place in NIGHT BETRAYED.  Except for some who remain human, the world is made up of flesh eating creepy zombies so that people dare not go out at night beyond the walls.  It is said that the wealthy Elite were responsible.  Most people don't remember the world of fifty years ago, but stories of that time are told by the elders.  Selena has a grisly job and is always ready to help others to their ultimate destination.  She even sees the humanity in the zombies.  Although this is book four of The Envy Chronicles, NIGHT BETRAYED can stand alone, but because everything is not resolved, I assume more tales of Envy will follow.

This is a very original plot with unusual characters.  I anxiously waited to see what Theo would discover with the old fifty-year-old computers, and whether the world was irrevocably changed.  There is a little romance along with the adventure of fighting the zombies and the Elite.  For those who like to read about scary, dark, and horrific worlds, you will enjoy this imaginative tale.  It pulls you into the story and is well written, but it's all a little too frightening for this reviewer.

Marilyn Heyman