REVIEWED by Jen B.
TITLE: 
Strain
SERIES: Strain
AUTHOR: Amelia Gormley
PUBLISHER: ACG Publications
LENGTH: 344 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 31, 2018
BLURB:
In a world with little hope and no rules, the only thing they have to lose is themselves.
Rhys Cooper is a dead man. Cut off from the world since childhood, he’s finally exposed to the lethal virus that wiped out most of the human race. Now his only hope for survival is infection by another strain that might confer immunity. But it’s sexually transmitted, and the degradation he feels at submitting to the entire squad of soldiers that rescued him eclipses any potential for pleasure—except with Darius, the squadron’s respected, capable leader.
Sergeant Darius Murrell has seen too much death and too little humanity. He’s spent a decade putting plague victims out of their misery and escorting survivors to a safe haven he can never enjoy. He’d rather help Rhys live than put him down, so when Rhys can’t reconcile himself to doing what’s necessary to survive, Darius is forced to save Rhys in spite of himself.
But with each passing day, it looks less and less likely that Rhys can be saved. Which means that soon Darius might have to put a bullet in the head of the one person in years who reminds him of what it means to be human.
REVIEW:
I’ve had this one on my radar for a long time but never had the chance to dig in. Glad I finally took the time to do so! I love when I am immersed into a newly-created world that takes me away from reality for a bit. This post-apocalyptic tale does just that. The main part of this story is about how a virus wiped much of the population out, leaving people with very few options. Depending on the strain, people either succumbed to the illness or became revenants (zombie creatures). A third strain, and the one that started this all (more about that later, or in the next book), created a type of superhuman immune to the previous two strains. It is believed that exposure to that third strain by way of sexual fluids, if caught early enough, can counteract the other two and instead, change the infection to the third strain. However, if wounded, the blood of the third strain carriers can cause infection of the other strain, thus killing the infected person. Sounds confusing, but it is actually pretty easy to keep up with in the actual story.
Darius is the leader of the third strain superhuman soldiers who scour the countryside looking for civvies to save, revenants to kill and infected to put out of their misery. They come across two young men at a monastery who they believe can be saved by the sexual transmission exposure. Rhys is one of those guys (kid really – extremely sheltered 19 year old) who spent much of his life tucked away from the real world, bullied and abused by his brother and father who ran the monastery after Rhys’ mother died and he was caught with another boy. Needless to say, he has had a sheltered and rough life. He is all but starved when they find him, evidence of some of the abuse he endured.
Anyhoo, the rest of the story is about Rhys having to receive sexual fluids from as many of the soldiers as possible in the hopes that it will save his life. It’s really a guessing game for everyone at this point, so they are going with the better safe than sorry route. There is the back and forth about the soldiers having to basically force themselves on someone who isn’t really into it. Rhys doesn’t make it very easy for them in that he has grown up believing he was basically saving himself and that sex should mean something. So, it takes him a long time to come to terms with the multiple partners issue. Then, there is the fact that he has also been taught that what he likes makes him a pervert and horrible person. He likes being told what to do, almost being forced to do things, etc. Darius is just the man for the job, but it takes some time for him to understand Rhys’ needs as well. Thankfully, one of the other soldier couples is a bit kinky as well and help Rhys and Darius to get on the same page.
I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this story, though some of the sex stuff was a little much at times. There are some interesting side characters though, including some bad-ass females, and when Darius does fully get in the game, things get pretty hot. I understand the next book takes place before and after this one, so it will probably be a bit different. Either way, I’m hoping we will get to see some of these guys again and I’m looking forward to learning more about the how’s and why’s of what went wrong to create such a dismal society.
RATING:
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