After arriving at Fort McCoy, Paige believes that it will be her new home and the place where she helps to make the cure for the HAVI virus. It doesn’t take her long to discover that not everything is as it seems. Not knowing who she can trust, she still leaves the base with a fellow soldier in search of materials that the lab needs to make the cure. This new mission will challenge her sense of … sense of morality and justice. Paige finds herself doing things she never believed herself capable of doing before the plague. With each new death by her hands, her heart grows a little darker and the line between right and wrong begins to blur. By the time she has everything she needs to make the cure, will her heart be as black as those she had to fight to get the cure?
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I never imagined I’d be reading about a planned pandemic during a real life pandemic but here I am… I’ve always been fascinated by virology and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone is one of my all time favorite books.
This second book in the HAVI virus series has Paige at Fort McCoy, joining the army, and seeing Keith off to a mission. But all is not what it seems with what’s left of the US military and the suspicious Dr. Turner is up to unethical behavior. Paige is a force to be reckoned with in this book as she begins missions of her own and I admired her bravery, her guts, and her hope in humanity.
This was fast paced and exciting with action and suspense, and I look forward to the next book in the series.
Black Hearts: HAVI Virus Book 2 Kindle Edition
by Nicol Nightingale
I borrowed this book via the Kindle Unlimited program.
This is the second installment in a apocalyptic/dystopian/killer virus series. In this piece, we are at Fort McCoy, with Paige, who wants nothing more than to help create the cure and the vaccine to fight the HAVI virus. But things don’t always go as planned as she is constantly sent out by the Dr in charge. Why does he not want her there? What is he hiding. And the story just picks up from there.
Ms. Nightingale is a very precise writer who likes to throw a lot of extremely detailed information into the story. At times this is great, at others it is a bit an overkill and feels like a way to pump up word count. This is particularly true when it comes to weapons and military gear (including MREs – we are treated to what flavor Paige is eating and what other flavors are available at every meal). We are also treated to repeated actions to eat the MREs. It does become tedious with routes being traveled as well.
The science is also very detailed where it doesn’t always need to be. We aren’t actually making the cure and vaccines ourselves. There are a ton of non-fiction books, like The Hot Zone, that cover this process better
The action set pieces and the emotional fallout are extraordinarily well-done as we are reminded that while humans will do what is necessary to physically survive, there will always be psychological repercussions and PTSD.
There really isn’t a lot of character growth in our main character and her friends and her husband (whom we rarely see) in this story. This is a middle book in a series, so we are experiencing a lot or rising action and second act drama
With that in mind, this is one of the better killer virus/ TEOTWAWKI novels available in the Kindle Unlimited program and the story does march along rather vigorously.
There will be at least one more book as this ends on a cliff-hanger. This is not a read alone. You do need to read the first book for this to make sense.
3 stars out of 5
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Hearts-HAVI-Virus-Book-ebook/dp/B07WR5WQFZ