"No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe."
Harper, a nurse, is tending the sick at a hospital when she first meets The Fireman. When she become infected with Dragonscale, herself, she's upset (especially because she's newly pregnant), but her husband becomes unhinged. Forced to run for her life, Harper encounters a group of people with Dragonscale who are learning to live with the spore, seemingly in harmony. Harper even finds The Fireman again, living nearby. However, all is not quite right with this group of people, as she discovers when things start to take a sinister turn.
When I first read this book, I devoured it, gulping down page after page. I found this story to be intensely readable; the story is compelling, the characters are interesting, and I wasn't always sure what was going to happen next. Hill weaves together these elements, along with the plague that is constantly lurking in the background. There is no cure for Dragonscale, but can it truly be mastered? There's horror in this story, to be sure, but there's also a lot of bravery, and moments where characters find strength within themselves to stand up for what they feel is right. I liked that Hill made this plague sound realistic, and how it spreads and the disastrous effects that it has. The pace is steady, but unrelenting, and you never quite feel like the main characters are completely safe. Like real life, though, it's also not always completely awful; there are moments of wry humor. For example, here's this bit of dialogue:
"Do you think Keith Richards is still alive?" he asked.
"Sure. Nothing can kill him. He'll outlast us all."
Kate Mulgrew is an amazing reader, making all of the characters come to life, completely distinctly. This is a long audiobook, but it was so good that I'd get to wherever I was going and sit in the car a few extra minutes, just to get a few more minutes of audiobook. Top-notch.
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