When Dead Men Bleed by K. Weikel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Good but could have been better.

This chronicle is about a zombie named Zeke who transforms into something rather unique. Along the way, he meets other supernatural beings and has quite a few experiences. Read this tale to find out more.

Let me start by saying that I love the book cover, and I think it is better than the one she made for the sequel When Dead Men Breathe.

The arena that Zeke and the other supernatural creatures were in was amusing too. I like the description of the vampires and bleeders. I thought it was cool that the vampires had red irises, that they could camouflage themselves, and turn into bats. Well done!

It was a nice surprise to see the skull illustrations in the book; I thought that was genius.

First, this book would have benefited from keener editing as I noticed some errors in the text. Second, this novel would have been better if it was shorter. I noticed that the pace of the book slowed down, but the beginning did have me absorbed by it. Third, K. Weikel should think about hiring a professional beta reader to grade her work before publishing it. That way, she can level up her story. Finally, I felt that this book was all over the place, regarding zombies, bleeders, and humans.

I recommend releasing a second edition of this novel to fix some of these issues.

The metamorphosis that can take place between species didn’t make sense to me, even though this is fantasy writing. I can understand a human becoming a vampire or a human becoming a werewolf, but for transformations regarding the main character? That might have been overdoing it. Normally, in other fictional works, zombies already bleed, and I found it strange that in this universe zombies are fragile creatures that can think. The mindless zombies made more sense, but they were also useless.

This may just be me, but I found Mikey to be irritating. Since Zeke despises her, I ended up not liking her, and it was troubling to see her pop up as much as she did. This could have been “fixed” by shortening the book a little bit or by having something happen to her so she could disappear.

K. Weikel is a talented writer, and I look forward to reading her other literary works. But she should invest more money and time into her books.

I was torn between giving this text a 3-star or 4-star rating. For me, it is not a five-star book, but it by no means is a two-star book either. In the end, I ended up giving her a 4-star rating because of the awesome book cover, the skull illustrations to match, a great introduction and rendition of the vampires, and a decent narrative.

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