White Horse: A Novel [Hardcover]

Alex Adams (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 17, 2012 | Series: White Horse

The world has ended, but her journey has just begun.

Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives. She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the president of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are defined not by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices. White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Adams’ fantasy is brilliant! It’s McCarthy’s The Road on hope steroids. Adams’ narrative is the prose of the world’s destruction, beautiful yet horrible. Her amazing characters are full of both hope and hopelessness in the face of death—and worse. This is what apocalyptic fiction will aspire to be from now on.” (RT Book Reviews)

“Adams has an excellent sense of timing, delivering gasp-inducing moments that punctuate her nightmare with verve. But it’s Zoe’s clear-eyed sense of self-preservation that will keep readers waiting for Adams’ follow-up.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Written with such skill and confidence that it sits easily in the pantheon of post-apocalyptic thrillers alongside the likes of Justin Cronin and Stephen King. . .The first installment in a bold new trilogy, White Horse is the perfect start to a series that promises to both terrify and thrill.” (Bookpage )

“Kept me up way too late at night, avidly racing to the thrilling end.” (Kaye George, Suspense Magazine)

“Alex Adams' debut, White Horse, is the first in a brilliant trilogy which will no doubt be ranked among the great fantasy novels.” (The Huffington Post Blog)

“It draws to a compelling pause, with a pair of revelations in the final pages that should spur readers to a sequel. Adams has fashioned a macabre landscape in which she explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human, with a compelling protagonist and narrator as our guide.” (The Oregonian)

“A cat-and-mouse tale of murder and pursuit . . . Adams' debut novel adds another dimension to dystopian fiction.” (Library Journal )

“Suspenseful, fast-paced, and boasting solid character development, this is a much better than average post-apocalyptic novel.” (Booklist )

“Alex Adams delivers a beautifully written page-turner that brings new life to post-apocalyptic fiction and the hero’s journey. I couldn’t stop reading, and couldn’t stop wondering what I would do in the world of White Horse. Gorgeously, unrelentingly, dark and gripping.” (Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters)

“The new Hunger Games.” (Grazia (UK))

About the Author

Alex Adams was born in Auckland, New Zealand. She lived in Greece and Australia before settling in Portland, Oregon. In between moving continents, Alex received a BA from the University of New England in Armidale, Australia and went on to teach English as a Second Language.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books (April 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451642997
• ISBN-13: 978-1451642995
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent novel, flawed by absurd coincidences. June 10, 2012

By Badger

Format:Hardcover

This is a sort of dreamy, female-focused version of The Road and, while competently written, it never particularly comes together as either a dystopian genre novel or as some sort of literary allegory. The author makes no effort to really ground the action in the physics of the world she creates; our main character just sort of drifts along, magically arriving at each successive destination despite the enormous obstacles in her path. I cared about the protagonist and was interested in the events described, but not so much that each successive logic gap didn't jar me right out of the dream world.

**light spoilers ahead**

Traveling largely by herself, in a world that has been struck by a virus that has either killed or biologically altered almost every person on Earth, our heroine manages to board what is presumably one of the last working flights, a plane that is conveniently flying from the US to Italy, and successfully navigate her way, on foot, from the Italian airport to a Greek island using only a map and a compass. Huh. I don't know that most people could successfully navigate their way out of state park with only a map and a compass, let alone get halfway around the world, walk across a country, find a working ferry and locate a tiny, unfamiliar, rural village on an island they've never seen before. And all this while scavenging food, dodging hostile survivors and avoiding a psychotic stalker. What is the statistical likelihood of this happening? What is the statistical likelihood of another person doing it too? The other hugely problematic coincidence; Whom should our heroine meet in the Italian countryside, but a close relative of her own employer. Double huh. Especially considering most of the world's population is already dead.

The author clearly intends this voyage to feel Odyssian, and the novel is laden with parallels to mythology. The effort here seems to be on building a sort of tone poem, with the novel's strongest concept that of navigating by feeling in a absurd world. And, no doubt that's a really interesting and evocative idea. Unfortunately, the manipulations necessary to make the plot work cause the book's reality to feel contrived and render the character's personal efforts meaningless. The journey ends up feeling preordained by the author rather than predestined by some sort of greater force.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning debut! April 20, 2012

By MyBookishWays

Format:Hardcover

I'm not quite sure what I expected when I started reading White Horse, but I sure didn't expect to get sucked in so much that I stayed up until 3am to finish it. Yeah, it's that good. Why is that good? Well, let's start at the beginning. Zoe Marshall seems to be your typical single, slightly aimless, 30 year old, cleaning floors at a pharmaceutical company while sympathizing with the lab rats and planning to attend college in the near future. When she comes home one day and finds a white jar in her apartment (that she didn't put there), things start to get very, very scary. People are getting sick, and Zoe's friends are dying. Environmental wars are brewing, and a plague is spreading, and if it doesn't kill you, it just might change you, in terrifying ways...

White Horse goes from Then and Now flawlessly, and told in Zoe's voice, offers one of the most chilling looks into a post apocalyptic future that I've ever read. As Zoe journey's across the world to find the man she loves, the secret of the plague's origins is unfolded (slowly and expertly), while at the same time a ruined landscape unfolds in a weather ravaged new world. You'll feel every chill, every shudder, that Zoe feels, and you won't be able to peel your eyes from the pages.

Alex Adams writing is lyrical, vivid, and chilling, and her observations on human nature are spot on. Zoe struggles to maintain her humanity in an environment that doesn't exactly foster warm and fuzzy feelings. There are things waiting in the shadows, things that used to be human, and Zoe is never safe. As steeled for survival that she is, however, she never loses sight of her compassion and her desire to help others. As good hearted as Zoe is, though, the author gives us her counterpart in a villain so nasty, so evil, the term "sympathetic villain" goes right out the window. I haven't hated a villain with quite as much venom in a long, long time. Hate's a strong word, yes, but it definitely applies with this one (this guy is deplorable.)

Make no mistake, dystopian fans, be prepared for a brutal, roller coaster ride with White Horse. There are some seriously horrifying, downright scary moments, and the author absolutely does not hold the readers hand. You will most certainly flinch, and squirm a bit, but there is nothing gratuitous here, and these moments do exactly what they're meant to do. Trust me on this one. There are messages here, too, most notably about the environment and human scientific experimentation, but they're delivered in a way that you won't mind taking your medicine. As uncomfortable as parts of this book may be, White Horse is a very realistic look at a possible future. Alex Adams takes some pretty fantastical concepts and makes them absolutely plausible, and that's what makes it so damn scary. Zoe is a heroine that we can all identify with, she's the kind of person that we should all strive to be, and her hope in the face of horrendous circumstances is brilliant to behold. The little moments of pure compassion in this book are nearly painful in their honesty, and made me want to be a better person, be just a little nicer to everyone in my life, and made me thankful for everything that I have.

White Horse moved me on many levels, and is frankly one of the best books that I've read this year. Read it, love it, then make it your mission to immediately hug everyone that will hold still, and cherish the ones you love. Yeah, I got a little sappy there, but White Horse hit me right in the soft spot. Don't tell anyone, ok? Our secret.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not great, but not dreck either December 18, 2012

By L. Spier

Format:Paperback

Others have done a synopsis of the plot, so I'll leave that out of my review. There probably are still semi-spoilers though.

I'm not sure what to say about White Horse. Was the writing good? It was decent, even though there were entirely too many similes and metaphors for my comfort and at times the writing verged on pretentious . (Seriously - metatarsals instead of toes?) Were the characters interesting? Yes. Did I care about them? Not in the least.

It was just such a dark and disturbing tale, with bits and pieces that left you going "Say what?" at various points, that I found the novel nearly impossible to finish. Yet it's hard to pin down exactly why.

For instance -the jar. A metaphor for Pandora's box? A way to get Zoe involved with Nick? A symbol for humanity? Presented first as a dream, then as reality, it simply made no sense in the context of the novel.

The sub-plot with Lisa - pregnant and then not? Was Lisa just yet another way for Lisa to show that she hasn't lost her compassion and humanity?

If 90% of the population died quickly, why the difficulty in scrounging for food?

Why was the Swiss so damned insistent on killing everyone he ran across? If he wanted Zoe, he could have taken her at any point. A lot of those scenes felt like filler - something to make the book longer and to make the Swiss appear more evil and Zoe more noble.

Add in a near-mythological trip through Italy and Greece to find Nick and things wind up seriously muddied along the way. I did finish the book, however I did so only to discover the twist at the end that other reviewers had spoken about. Otherwise, I would have tossed the book aside at about the 50% mark.

This is the first in a trilogy. Will I read the rest? No. I don't think I could wade through some of the unnecessarily flowery prose to find the meat of the story again. For my own analogy, reading this novel was like eating a peanut butter sandwich at a 5-star restaurant. You invested a lot in the sandwich yet, at the end, come away feeling vaguely dissatisfied.