**This book was reviewed for Limitless Publishing via Netgalley

*****Spoilers warning

Lockdown is one of many in the post-apocalyptic subgenre that utilises disease as the source of the apocalypse. In this case, it is the AM13 virus, a disease at first believed to be part of a hoax. Leah, our protagonist, sends a zombie virus video to her boss by mistake. He latches onto it as a vital news story, which freaks Leah out. As things become more serious, a quarantine procedure known as Lockdown is put into place. As journalists and news researchers, Leah’s boss declares that his employees will sleep on the property during Lockdown. Despite seeing some truly awful things beyond the gate leading to the news building, Leah, and two coworkers flee the office to seek out families. Outside, amongst the infected, they witness truly horrific events. They aren’t properly prepared to rough it for several days, and have no weapons against the infected and rogue humans alike. Can they get to where they are going in one piece?

This story was an interesting take for me. I dislike zombie fiction, but I quite enjoy medical disaster apocalyptic fiction. Lockdown has a bit of a meandering, rambling quality though. It is written first person, from Leah’s perspective. It almost, at times, seemed very stream of consciousness. I had trouble feeling anything for Leah. There just wasn’t much personality there to capture my attention. The first person perspective also didn’t lend itself to developing attachments to Jake and Michelle either. None of the characters had any real development at all. There is no hero or heroine arc, and sadly the ending is about what I expected- everybody dies gruesome deaths. That final outcome I may have felt differently over if the lead, or others, had done anything remotely heroic. Even out in the world, their challenges seemed quite bland. The parts that talked about the virus itself were most interesting to me. I would have loved to know what was going on in the wider world.

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