Title: Hungry for Your Love

Edited By: Lori Perkins

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin 2009

Genre: Zombie; Short Stories

Pages: 368

Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library; April Read-a-Thon; Zombie

Finally finished!  I love zombie stories, but I really feel like I've been reading this book forever.  Like most anthologies I have mixed feelings about the stories.  Initially, I was concerned about the mix of zombies and romance.  Was I going to read zombie porn?  EWWW! Definitely not the part of the genre that I enjoy.  Thankfully only a few stories alluded to that activity.  There were a couple zombie (or zombie-ish)/human pairings and a few zombie/zombie pairings, but there were many classic survivors find love stories.  I am highlighting my top five stories (out of 21 total):

1. R.G. Hart "My Partner the Zombie" - A model private investigator, her zombie (but high functioning with unrequited love) partner, the circus, midgets, and a meglomaniac!  What a cast! Mystery, intrigue, and a great happy (if slightly improbable) ending. Really enjoyed this one.
2. Jan Kozlowski "First Love Never Dies" - A police officer stumbles into a grotesque compound owned by a former acquaintance. It has a happy ending in an appropriate conclusion kind of way.  Not happy, but satisfying.  Full of very relatable emotions, zombie infestation nonwithstanding.
3. S.M. Cross "Through Death to Love" - How can someone fall in love with a zombie?  Perhaps through speech therapy.  However it happens, you bet it's going to be slow and steady.  (hee hee get it?)  Ignoring my ridiculous puns, I liked the quiet emotions to this love story.
4. Jeanine McAdam "Inhuman Resources" - Aren't all office drones zombielike?  But what if they actually were zombies.  Could you spot the difference?  These are the questions our heroine must ask herself at the Shibboleth Insurance Agency.  And to complicate matters, she meets a mysterious, slightly geeky guy claiming to be a zombie hunter.
5. Steven Saus "Kicking the Habit" - Romeo and Juliet style story except R and J are now zombies.  I loved the subtle humor to this piece.  Zombies are hard to make humorous, but Saus definitely achieved a slightly funny, definitely engaging love story.