Strain by Amelia C. Gormley
Sci-Fi Romance (Dystopian)
February 17, 2014
Riptide Publishing

Reviewed by Helyce

Goodreads Blurb: In a world with little hope and no rules, the only thing they have to lose is themselves.

Rhys Cooper is a dead man. Cut off from the world since childhood, he’s finally exposed to the lethal virus that wiped out most of the human race. Now his only hope for survival is infection by another strain that might confer immunity. But it’s sexually transmitted, and the degradation he feels at submitting to the entire squad of soldiers that rescued him eclipses any potential for pleasure—except with Darius, the squadron’s respected, capable leader.

Sergeant Darius Murrell has seen too much death and too little humanity. He’s spent a decade putting plague victims out of their misery and escorting survivors to a safe haven he can never enjoy. He’d rather help Rhys live than put him down, so when Rhys can’t reconcile himself to doing what’s necessary to survive, Darius is forced to save Rhys in spite of himself.

But with each passing day, it looks less and less likely that Rhys can be saved. Which means that soon Darius might have to put a bullet in the head of the one person in years who reminds him of what it means to be human.

I am a huge fan of science fiction in my romance reads.  Mix in some kind of medical experiment like genetic splicing and I am there!  So when I read the blurb for this and realized that it centered around a future world suffering from the aftermath of a virus gone wrong I was intrigued so much so that I seem to have completely mis-read or ignored the part of the blurb that I changed to bold print above. Sex with the entire squad?  Um, how the heck did I miss that??? And though I struggled with this story once I realized how it was gonna go, I kept reading because I had to know one thing…would it work? Would Rhys be saved?

To expand a bit on the blurb, it’s future Earth and there are few survivors after a virus is unleashed turning humans into zombie like creatures called Revenants (revs).  If an uninfected person comes in contact with a Revenant it’s only a matter of time before the person becomes symptomatic.  Interestingly, the super soldiers who canvas the earth looking for healthy survivors and taking out the revs they come across, called Juggernauts (Juggs for short), are biologically altered and carry a strain of the virus that can sometimes reverse effects of exposure from a revenant.  This is done through sex and to make sure it “takes” there must be a lot of sex, with multiple partners.

When the Juggs arrive at the monastery where Rhys has been living since he was a child, they find that they are too late. Though they save Rhys and another man named Jacob, both have likely been exposed, but as it is unknown, the Juggs decide to take Rhys and Jacob along with them. When the Juggs talk amongst themselves, they contemplate ‘helping’ Rhys and Jacob by offering them a chance as survival.  They explain what has to happen in great detail and both Jacob and Rhys agree.

And this is where things got quite a bit uncomfortable for me.  Rhys immediately forms an attachment to Darius, the Juggernaut leader of the group that rescued him.  And though it’s made very clear what needs to happen to give Rhys (and Jacob) the best chance of the good virus transferring from the Juggs into his system, namely lots of sex, multiple times a day, with multiple partners; Rhys is clearly uncomfortable and unhappy about it all. He wants Darius so whenever Darius is with him he responds sexually.  But when any of the other men approach him, he gives in, but is unable to experience pleasure during the act.

The romance in this story is difficult to describe because it’s really just totally fucked up.  Rhys is very young and wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s half in love with Darius, scared out of his mind that he’s going to become symptomatic and hating every minute of the sex with anyone except Darius.  On top of that, Jacob-the other man that was saved-has been a big bully to Rhys since he was a child.  Jacob’s father was a preacher and when they discovered Rhys was gay, they spent his formative years trying to preach the gay out of him.  So Rhys has this really screwed up view of everything he’s feeling and now it’s made worse by what is happening.

The whole sex issue aside, I found the story and secondary characters interesting enough to read through till the end.  Darius’s second in command, Xolani, is the only woman on the team and her presence provides a bit of light in an otherwise truly dark world. She is the voice of reason, often enough that Darius relies on her not only to manage the team but with his personal thoughts and worries as well.  The whole feeling is that this team is fighting a losing battle.  They travel around, killing revs and rescuing survivors to bring them to a safe haven.   But for them there is little comfort and not much to look forward to until Darius meets Rhys and opens his heart:

“Kid’s too damn soft for this life.” (Darius)

“Isn’t that why we wanna keep him?” (Xolani) Darius laughed humorlessly.  “He makes us softer, and it’s been too long since we had that.  We miss it.  Reminds us we’re human.”

This story concludes with a ‘happy for now’ which I was ok with after what transpires near the end.  Though I would have liked a more clear-cut answer to certain issues, I think by this point in the story I mostly just felt a sense of relief.  Though I would not classify what happens within this story as rape, some of the sex scenes (though consent is implied) are very uncomfortable so if you have any related triggers this book is not for you.

I struggled with what to rate this. The story has an interesting premise and I did like this author’s voice.  The story is dark, people have to do things they don’t like and there is a lot of death and violence. But there are scenes that made me happy and put some of the discomfort I felt into perspective.  So, I’m going with a 50/50 on this one.

Rating: C

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