I am a big fan of the zombie genre and independent publishing, so I jumped at the chance to read “Penny.” It's a self published zombie novel set in a small town where an freak electrical storm raises the dead from their graves and they go on an eating spree.

The savior and possible vaccine to the zombie bite that inevitably turns you into a zombie is the blood of a young girl named Penny. She breastfed from her mother as she was turning, so her body developed an immunity to the zombie virus.

“Penny” is a self published novel, so as you can expect it lacks the quality of a professional writer. It has a decent plot, but the writing mechanics, grammatical and spelling errors and formatting problems make it hard to get from page to page. Just as your getting into a scene, words are missing or misspelled and you find yourself reading the same passages over and over again. This makes it hard to get into the story.

This shows a glaring problem with self publishing. The books are put together haphazardly and with no editor to look it over. Most companies have editors, but it costs extra to have them look over the work. Depending on the size of the book and the extent of the editing that could be a considerable amount.

“Penny” could have been a great zombie novel that, with a little promotion, may have been well received. Instead, it becomes a regret and a book I would no recommend to others.