The Genius Plague

The Genius Plague by David Walton, 384 pages

Summary from Goodreads: What if the pandemic you thought would kill you made you more intelligent instead? In the Amazon jungle, a disease is spreading. To those who survive, it grants enhanced communication, memory, and pattern recognition. But the miracle may be the sinister survival mechanism of a fungal organism, manipulating the infected into serving it.
Paul Johns, a mycologist, is convinced the fungal host is the next stage of human evolution, while his brother Neil, an analyst at the NSA, is committed to its destruction. Is the human race the master in this symbiotic relationship, or are we becoming the pawns of a subtly dominating and utterly alien intelligence?

Based on the summary, you as the reader, already know a lot of what is going to happen. You can guess the final outcome as well. So, it is not so much what as how it is all going to happen. How does Neil and rest of the NSA and government figure out what is happening and the best way to combat it? Can Neil change his brother's mind? There are some twists along the way. I loved the premise and the way the author executed it. A blurb on the book touts it as a page turner and I would agree wholeheartedly. People who like Michael Crichton and Robin Cook would probably like this one.

World War Moo

World War Moo by Michael Logan
309 Pages

"It began with a cow that just wouldn't die. Yep. That's right. They're still un-dead, and now the disease has spread to humans. The epidemic that transformed Britain's bovine population into a blood-thirsty, brain-grazing, zombie horde...err...zombie herd... is threatening to take over the globe in Michael Logan's World War Moo . And there's not much time left to stop it. All of Great Britain is infected and hungry. The rest of the world has a tough choice to make. Should they nuke the Brits right off the map -- men, women, children, cows and all -- in the biggest genocide in history? Or should they risk global infection in a race against time to find a cure? With hungry zombies attempting to cross borders by plains, trains, boats, and any other form of transport available, it's only a matter of time before the virus gets out. And if it does, there's only one answer. This means war. "

The second book of the Apocalypse Cow series is not as strong as the first book and I found myself not caring about the fate of any of the characters. 

Find Me

Find Me by Laura Van Den Berg
280 Pages

"Joy has no one. She spends her days working the graveyard shift at a grocery store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. When Joy’s immunity gains her admittance to a hospital in rural Kansas, she sees a chance to escape her bleak existence. There she submits to peculiar treatments and follows seemingly arbitrary rules, forming cautious bonds with other patients—including her roommate, whom she turns to in the night for comfort, and twin boys who are digging a secret tunnel.

As winter descends, the hospital’s fragile order breaks down and Joy breaks free, embarking on a journey from Kansas to Florida, where she believes she can find her birth mother, the woman who abandoned her as a child. On the road in a devastated America, she encounters mysterious companions, cities turned strange, and one very eerie house. As Joy closes in on Florida, she must confront her own damaged memory and the secrets she has been keeping from herself."

The description has very little resemblance to the novel itself.  While there is an epidemic, it quickly loses much importance to the plot as the novel wanders aimlessly.  The last half of the book is a mess of a road trip for Joy and makes very little sense overall. Not Recommended.