Synopses & Reviews
Read Joan Frances Turner's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.
View our feature on Joan Frances Turner's Dust.
What happens between death and life can change a girl. Jessie is a zombie. And this is her story...
Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. After she was buried, she awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Now Jessie's part of a gang. They fight, hunt, and dance together as one- something humans can never understand. There are darkplaces humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into zombie gangs. But when a mysterious illness threatens the existence of both zombies and humans, Jessie must choose between looking away or staring down the madness-and hanging on to everything she now knows as life... Watch a Video
Review
"Meet 15-year-old Jessica Anne Porter. She's a plucky teenager from a town near Chicago who spends most of her time hanging out, looking for something to eat, and finding a safe place to bed down for the night. Jessie's not a homeless person, though. She's an undead person. Turner's debut is a massively entertaining and seriously revisionist zombie novel. How revisionist? Well, her characters communicate with each other eloquently (although, to humans, it sounds like a lot of grunts). They remember their past lives: who they were, how they died. They have thoughts and emotions, and when a new kind of creature, a sort of human-zombie hybrid, appears out of nowhere, they feel fear. The author has taken the familiar zombie clichTs and given them a good shake. Jessie, who's been dead for nine years, is as real and human a character as anyone you're likely to meet in the pages of a mainstream novel, and Turner has created a new zombie mythology that is smart, scary, and viscerally real. Recommend this one highly to horror fans, even those who claim to have sated themselves on zombies."
-David Pitt, Booklist (starred review)
Review
Dust is... “MASSIVELY ENTERTAINING . . . Turner has created a new zombie mythology that is smart, scary and viscerally real.”—Booklist (starred review)
“SPECTACULAR . . . A great, unsettling portrait of raw hunger and hope.”—Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Descent
“AMAZING . . . Joan Frances Turner has done for zombies what Anne Rice did for vampires.”—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Two Graves
“A TRULY ORIGINAL IDEA told from a viewpoint that will surprise and horrify.”—Laurell K. Hamilton, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels
“WELL WRITTEN . . . A new and unique take on zombies.”—Ilona Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of Steel’s Edge
Review
Dust is... andldquo;MASSIVELY ENTERTAINING . . . Turner has created a new zombie mythology that is smart, scary and viscerally real.andrdquo;andmdash;Booklist (starred review)
andldquo;SPECTACULAR . . . A great, unsettling portrait of raw hunger and hope.andrdquo;andmdash;Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Descent
andldquo;AMAZING . . . Joan Frances Turner has done for zombies what Anne Rice did for vampires.andrdquo;andmdash;Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Two Graves
andldquo;A TRULY ORIGINAL IDEA told from a viewpoint that will surprise and horrify.andrdquo;andmdash;Laurell K. Hamilton, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels
andldquo;WELL WRITTEN . . . A new and unique take on zombies.andrdquo;andmdash;Ilona Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of Steelandrsquo;s Edge andnbsp;
Synopsis
Read Joan Frances Turner's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.
View our feature on Joan Frances Turner's Dust.
What happens between death and life can change a girl. Jessie is a zombie. And this is her story...
Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. After she was buried, she awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Now Jessie's part of a gang. They fight, hunt, and dance together as one- something humans can never understand. There are darkplaces humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into zombie gangs. But when a mysterious illness threatens the existence of both zombies and humans, Jessie must choose between looking away or staring down the madness-and hanging on to everything she now knows as life... Watch a Video
Synopsis
What happens between death and life can change a girl. Jessie is a zombie. And this is her story . . . Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. After she was buried, she awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. And there are others—gangs of undead roaming the Indiana woods, fighting, hunting, hidden.
But when a mysterious illness threatens the existence of both zombies and humans, Jessie must decide whether to stay and fight or flee to survive . . .
Synopsis
Being human is a disadvantage in post-apocalyptic America...
Now that the Feeding Plague has swept through human and zombie societies, it seems like everyone is an "ex" these days. Ex-human. Ex- zombie. Except for Amy, that is. She's the only human survivor from her town-a frail. And if the feral dogs, the flesh-eating exes, and the elements don't get her, she just may discover how this all began. Because in this America, life is what you make it...
About the Author
Joan Frances Turner was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the Calumet region of northwest Indiana. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives near the Indiana Dunes with her family and a garden full of spring onions and tiger lilies, weather permitting. She is also the author of Frail, the follow-up to Dust.