Bell  has created an exquisitely bleak tale and an unforgettableheroine whose  eye for beauty and aching need for redemption somehow bring wonder into  a world full of violence and decay.]]Publishers Weekly (starred review) Alden Bell has managed something improbable and striking: a disconcertingly beautiful tale of zombie apocalypse. The Reapers Are the Angels is soaked in all the blood that any horror fan could desire, the effluvia rendered in a high Southern Gothic style as redolent of rotting magnolia as anything written by William Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy.Charlie Huston, author of SleeplessAlden Bell provides an astonishing twist on the southern gothic: like Flannery O'Connor with zombies. Michael Gruber, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Air and Shadows For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She cant remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her off on her personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth betweenthe insulted remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.