It is the end of the world.
They call him Eagle, like the grand and beautiful bird that symbolizes freedom. During these dark times, when humanity is experiencing nothing but suffering, a man with such a powerful name should be a beacon of hope, yet he is anything but.
Her name is Autumn, but she hasn’t said this name or much of anything else in the four years since the fall of civilization. A … of civilization. A shell of her former self, living wild in a cave at the bottom of a ravine, Autumn is accustomed to being alone. She prefers it, actually, especially when her only options for company either try to kill her, or worse, to lock her up inside their walls.
Captured by Eagle’s people, Autumn is suddenly thrust back into the land of the living, but she would hardly call it living. The community of Purgatory is full of sinners, the most evil of whom seem to have set their sights on her.
In an act born of anger and defiance, Eagle becomes Autumn’s unexpected savior, forcing these two solitary people into each other’s broken worlds. Neither knows quite what to make of the other, but one thing is certain. To survive Purgatory, they must learn how to rely on each other, a feat that could possibly teach them both how to live again
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After meeting Eagle in Thicker Than Blood I will admit I was curious about his character. He wasn’t a nice guy, he was mean, he was violent, he caused a lot of destruction where the previous three main characters were concerned BUT I do love an anti-hero so I had to read Eagle’s story.
This book takes place after the end of Thicker Than Blood. Again I felt the story was a little slow to start but as before the character interested me enough to want to know more and keep me reading. The book is set again in Purgatory and we learn how Eagle goes through his day to day life, how he got their his past history and his relationship to Jeffers and Liv who run Purgatory.
When a girl from the wild (outside of the walls) is brought into camp, Eagle stumbles across her feral and wounded and takes her in. Something about this girl awakens a part of him he thought was lost long ago and seeing him battle with his frustration, anger, loneliness etc when it comes to protecting and caring for this girl made for a compelling read.
Autumn is the heroine, a young girl that has been hiding to survive on her own for almost 4 years. SO now thrust into Purgatory she is scared and overwhelmed with the sounds and smells of society after so long only having herself to rely on. The first chunk of the book for me was driven by Eagle and his POV towards Autumn I found it both amusing and fascinating. When we start to see Autumns personality show through I really liked how she softened Eagle.
Now don’t get me wrong he doesn’t go soft, he is still mean, he is still callous and is still violent but we see another side to him when he is around Autumn, he begins to live again. What I enjoyed was the juxtaposition between the moments of happiness in the simple life they lead now with the harsh environment they live in, mix in memories of Eagle’s past and it makes for a pretty dire story. Yet in many ways these are two characters that really do fight for everything they can get in this book. I hope after how the story came to a close in the epilogue we get to revisit them eventually. Roll on book three!
I really didn’t want to like E, I was wild and aggressive in book one and I couldn’t see that changing. But then Autumn comes along, more of a wildcat than Eve ever was. She has been alone fending for herself, surviving the only way she possibly could, hiding and becoming solitary for years. Buried under dirt, shit and filth, doing anything to disguise her natural human scent. Captured by humans being forced into an environment she can no longer deal with. The only person able to deal with her is E. This was a waiting game of suspense, and I was on edge from the moment she was captured, my thoughts on Eagle slowly changed, I gradually understood his torment and why he had become who he was. Apart from a couple of characters in Purgatory, this place and the people inside live up to the name, they are worse than the zombies because they choose to behave and treat others they way they do. Liv, I absolutely detest, I don’t care what turned her the way she is, she is bitter, evil and arrogant. I really want to end her myself, since her story is next I’m not sure I want to read it. I do not want to end up liking or understanding her, but Adam is also part of the next book. I just hope he stays strong against her and doesn’t fall into her trap. For Autumn and Eagle the ending was the best I could hope for, for them. Gripping read. Started 7/7/21 Finished 8/7/21
———–COULD CONTAIN SPOILERS————–
“Welcome to Purgatory. Last stop on the road to Hell.”
Book #1 Thicker Than Blood is one of my favorites. After finishing that book and discovering that Eagle (the bad guy) would get his own book I was super excited to get my hands on this book. Even though he was this dark/not so nice guy in book 1, I still liked him. I just have a thing for the bad guys. Madeline Sheehan and Claire C. Riley write so well together (it’s like magic!). I love Madeline’s Undeniable series (I have a thing for bikers) and I love dystopian/zombie books which Claire is best known for. Together they wrote this amazing book. I do believe both writers have an evil side. Some things were really dark, and makes you think how us people would be like if we lived in a zombie infected world.
“The Sadness that had grown so long inside me was now suffocating me with its strangled vines of hope.”
Beneath Blood and Bone grabbed my attention from the first sentence on and it didn’t let me go until the end of the book. I loved everything about this book, I can’t point out anything I would’ve seen done differently. It was really unpredictable, and that’s a part of why I LOVED this book so much.
We finally see why Eagle is the way he is. There were a few flashbacks (they aren’t too many or too long, but very essential to the story) that broke my heart. I was crying during those flashbacks, so keep some tissues next to you. Autumn was pretty much a mystery in the beginning, she is a new character who we didn’t meet in Thicker Than Blood (at least I don’t think so).
I loved the character development for both Autumn and Eagle, they grew both as individuals and as a couple. Especially Eagle, he had to fight his inner demons. Which wasn’t easy (those scenes broke my heart!). Autumn brought Eagle back to “life”, and gave him a reason to be better. He was very protective of her, which I loved.
“I loved that I could do this to him, that I could make him feel this way. I loved that I could make him feel at all.”
Let’s talk about side characters. First of all I HATE Liv so much. She was so evil. I wish she died an horrible death, she really deserves to die! Adam, who works with Eagle at the Garage, is a very fun and nice guy, but probably has his own demons. At the end of the ARC there was a prologue and chapter 1 for BOOK 3!! YES PEOPLE THERE WILL BE A BOOK 3!! I am so excited!! However I was really surprised about one of the main characters, I don’t know how Claire and Madeline will redeem this person. They do know how to turn an “evil” person into a likable/lovable one. They did it with Eagle (I love him!). BUT the person for book 3 is just plain evil, However I am curious what happened to that person to make them the way they are. I CAN’T WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON BOOK 3!!