Sadie Walker is Stranded by Madeleline Roux

Sadie Walker is Stranded by Madeleine Roux is the sequel to the excellent Allison Hewitt is Trapped. To quote the blurb on the back cover of the novel, "In the months since The Outbreak, Seattle has become a walled fortress - the Infected are kept at bay, and the survivors are trying to scrape back a life. But the city is rife with crime, religious cults and black-market dealings. And things are about to get worse.
When a group of frustrated fanatics, the "Repopulationists", destroy part of the wall, zombies start swarming the city. Sadie, devastated by the kidnapping of her young nephew, must find him and get them both out before it's too late. But the only escape is by sea, and she's seen for herself the horrible fate of those who tried that route before..."
Reading that, I thought that a lot of the novel would be taken up with Sadie's search for her nephew and her escape from Seattle but no, that part was all wrapped up in chapter two. Sadie and her nephew, Shane, do escape on a boat with a handful of other survivors. They don't get far before they beach on an a nearby island, where they spend most of the rest of the novel, surviving as best they can.
Sadie is a very different character to Allison Hewitt in that she is not so good in a fight and she has an annoying tendency to act first and think of the consequences later, usually when she realises that what she has done was monumentally stupid. Prior to the zombie apocalypse she used to be an illustrator, so I had some sympathy for her. However, there were times when I felt she needed a good slap to knock some common sense into her. For example, near the end of the novel she takes Shane and they sneak away in a little rowing boat because she was sick of the other survivors and she thought that Shane and her would be better off on their own. Silly woman! She rowed half way around the island before common sense hit her and she was forced to return to the others with her tail between her legs.
Sadie also spends a lot of the novel brooding about whether she is a good enough replacement mother for her young nephew Shane. She copes as best she can but she doesn't always deliver on her promises to him and that frustrates her and annoys Shane. Sadie is the first of the group of survivors from their boat to go off and explore the island. She promises Shane that she'll be back before sundown but when she discovers that the island is not uninhabited and that zombies dwell there it takes her a lot longer to return to Shane and the others.
Although the novel was set in a different part of America to Allison's adventures there was a nice piece of continuity between the two novels, as Sadie used to follow Allison's blog and was a big fan of her. Whenever she got stuck in a tricky situation (a common occurence!) she would often say, "I wonder what Allison would do?"
Sadie Walker is Stranded is certainly an entertaing zombie novel, but is not as good as Allison Hewitt is Trapped in my opinion. Therefore, I'd give it a 6 out of 10 rating.

This will be my last post before Christmas, so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Incidentally, my next post will be on Boxing Day and I'll tell you all about my best Christmas present ever! Have fun!