REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Healing 
SERIES: Pandemus Chronicles Book 2
AUTHOR: Grace Duncan
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 98 Pages
Blurb:
When Duncan stumbles into a pharmacy in search of something to fix his broken leg, he’s surprised to find someone else there. Like the rest of the post-pandemic world, it appeared empty. Instead, he discovers Mark, a former nurse who walked away from his profession after losing too many patients to the virus. Despite swearing he’d never practice medicine again, Mark patches Duncan up over Duncan’s protests. He even finds an abandoned house in the tiny town, and they settle in until Duncan heals enough to look out for himself. Much to the chagrin of both, they find themselves caring for each other.
Duncan welcomes it, thrilled at finding someone he can trust. However, he’s well aware of the shadows in Mark’s eyes and understands Mark’s reticence as he learns the story. But as he’s starting to do things for himself again, Duncan realizes he doesn’t want Mark to leave. He’s not sure if can get Mark to let go of his fears so they can stay together and love. But Duncan’s damned sure going to try.
Review:
With all the post-apocalyptic movies, TV shows and books out there, all full of zombies running rampant, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Grace Duncan had written a more character driven end-of-the-world story.
Duncan is a man who’s become used to surviving on his own. After losing his boyfriend to the virus that has taken most of the world, he roams alone, just trying to find enough to eat and avoid being killed. When he injures himself doing something stupid, he goes looking for medical supplies in a small pharmacy.
Mark is a man who has been touched by death more than most and it’s left him broken and afraid. Being a nurse had him on the front lines when the plague came calling and he had to watch helplessly as everyone around him died. Still, when he and Duncan find each other, he ignores his first impulse to run and finds himself reluctantly helping the injured man.
What follows is an interesting look at two men who can’t decide if they are more terrified of being alone or of taking a chance.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to have no one in your life. Not a friend or a family member to be found and I’m guessing the desire to not be alone must be overwhelming. Duncan is going from city to city looking for anyone he knew who might be alive, but Mark has decided that losing people is too painful and avoids other survivors as much as possible.
The whole scenario did have me stop and pausing to think about what I would do if I found myself in the same situation, but it led me to the same place is always does…with absolutely no desire to be a survivor of any kind of apocalypse!
Anyway, I digress.
I really admire how Ms. Duncan created two characters with very different personalities that I found very easy to connect with. She made it simple to understand the motivations behind their actions and to sympathize with the decisions they made.
I enjoyed watching them circle closer and closer to each other. Duncan’s fear that the fact that he was healing would mean Mark leaving him lonely again was palatable. Mark’s terror of losing someone else he’s attached to is staggering and I totally understood his reluctance to take a chance.
The only complaint I have about this story is the feeling of it not being finished. I understand that the author is meaning it to be part of an on-going series of stories, but I finished the book feeling a little cheated. It felt like I’d been handed the first half of an epic tale with the vague promise of “something more” in the future. This story is the second in the Pandemus Chronicles and as the first part featured an entirely different pair of men, I would assume that the next part would be about another different couple. I can only hope for future glimpses of this wonderful couple in future stories.
That being said, the writing is excellent. Ms. Duncan draws a perfect picture of a broken world without much hope for the future but still manages to infuse her characters with almost reluctant promise.
I will be looking for more in this series in the future.
Rating: 
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