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Infected
The Infected Holiday Special
An Infected Special Edition
Peek behind the curtain with Roan McKichan and the various characters who make up the Infected universe in this sometimes serious, sometimes humorous collection of short stories centered around the holidays.
There’s Kevin, who reflects on how lonely his life in the closet is. And Fiona and Tank, who go on a surprisingly good first date. Roan himself finds his Halloween celebration at Panic interrupted by loose cats and obnoxious frat boys while Paris contemplates his mortality on their impromptu honeymoon. Dropkick deals with her new marriage and male egos on the job, Roan meets Connor at the scene of a drunken fight, and Holden contemplates his future as a street kid. These stories and many more will be told, centered around more holidays than you can shake a dreidel at.
Peek behind the curtain with Roan McKichan and the various characters who make up the Infected universe in this sometimes serious, sometimes humorous collection of short stories centered around the holidays.
There’s Kevin, who reflects on how lonely his life in the closet is. And Fiona and Tank, who go on a surprisingly good first date. Roan himself finds his Halloween celebration at Panic interrupted by loose cats and obnoxious frat boys while Paris contemplates his mortality on their impromptu honeymoon. Dropkick deals with her new marriage and male egos on the job, Roan meets Connor at the scene of a drunken fight, and Holden contemplates his future as a street kid. These stories and many more will be told, centered around more holidays than you can shake a dreidel at.
116 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 17, 2016
3 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Speed
78 books511 followersSuper nerd. Former EIC at Cx Pulp. I've won Rainbow Awards, and still can't believe it. A small medicinal horse. The Meryl Streep of stunt corpses. Enby.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 15, 2016
You read a book, or even better a series, and you fall in love with characters. They take you on an amazing ride and then drop you off at the depot and continue on without you. You can’t stop the wonder and worry…are they doing okay? What has happened to them? Sometimes we readers are lucky enough to find out. This collection of snapshots starts at the very beginning of the adventures of our wildcats and continues on just beyond the final book. Well, I take that back. Holden’s story is still coming and perhaps more, so they take us to the end as we know it now. Big thanks to Speed for gifting us these brief fly on a wall moments of the grand cast and crew of Infected.
This is fairly difficult to rate because it was a mixed bag for me. It is quite a collection although they are merely pages for each one. There were a few that I would have happily traded in for a deeper look at the characters that I adore and amuse me. It’s no surprise that my favorite holiday’s in this set involved my favorite characters. My heart sang and stuttered and for those moments, the mundane segments were tolerable. I understood and appreciated the behind the scenes glimpse of most but there were a handful that felt empty and without purpose. And it pains me to bring my overall impression of the book down because of it. If I could trim it down, I would say it’s a stellar collection.
What's to like: We visit over a dozen different holiday’s. It wouldn’t be Speed’s style give us traditional or expected observances of these days. It was quite entertaining to witness the twists they add to their celebrations or lack of. The sections range from deeply personal to superficial bits of info. All-in-all, it was FUN.
What's to love: More Infected! Simple as that. I loved seeing them again. I loved fresh new information about them. I loved seeing into their hearts, even if it was only a blink of time. And I absolutely adored Valentines day.
Beware of: Short short short scenes. I’m not even sure I can call them scenes. It’s more like flashbacks of memories in each characters head. As well as the itch to fast forward a time or two. In case you are wondering….there is no Matt. I missed him greatly here.
This book is for: Only readers that have completed the final book of the Infected series. It would be extremely spoilery to anyone yet to read all of the books. It is most definitely not a stand-alone. Infected fans only please.
Book UNfunk
This is fairly difficult to rate because it was a mixed bag for me. It is quite a collection although they are merely pages for each one. There were a few that I would have happily traded in for a deeper look at the characters that I adore and amuse me. It’s no surprise that my favorite holiday’s in this set involved my favorite characters. My heart sang and stuttered and for those moments, the mundane segments were tolerable. I understood and appreciated the behind the scenes glimpse of most but there were a handful that felt empty and without purpose. And it pains me to bring my overall impression of the book down because of it. If I could trim it down, I would say it’s a stellar collection.
What's to like: We visit over a dozen different holiday’s. It wouldn’t be Speed’s style give us traditional or expected observances of these days. It was quite entertaining to witness the twists they add to their celebrations or lack of. The sections range from deeply personal to superficial bits of info. All-in-all, it was FUN.
What's to love: More Infected! Simple as that. I loved seeing them again. I loved fresh new information about them. I loved seeing into their hearts, even if it was only a blink of time. And I absolutely adored Valentines day.
Beware of: Short short short scenes. I’m not even sure I can call them scenes. It’s more like flashbacks of memories in each characters head. As well as the itch to fast forward a time or two. In case you are wondering….there is no Matt. I missed him greatly here.
This book is for: Only readers that have completed the final book of the Infected series. It would be extremely spoilery to anyone yet to read all of the books. It is most definitely not a stand-alone. Infected fans only please.
Book UNfunk
February 25, 2023
'The Infected' is an amazing world created by Andrea Speed and it's one I could easily live in. Hands down it's in the top five of my favorite series of all time, and that is saying quite a lot. The fact that the author has been so generous as to provide her poor fans with extras to keep us happy, well…she knows what's good for her. *grins* Needless to say, I was delighted that the holiday shorts posted on the author's website were being put into one set to be read.
This collection turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting, and that made it even better. I got wonderful glimpses into each of the characters, with back stories that explained so much. I got to see Roan, still in uniform, and how he met Connor. I saw Holden, newly homeless after being kicked out because he was gay. I saw Kevin, at home, and his utter loneliness. Watching Fiona and Tank on their first date was a hoot. It was refreshing to see Roan and Dylan together doing a couple outing, and keeping Dylan away from fireworks. It was normal, and not usually how I got to see them. I adored seeing Darinda and her wife Kim, in their daily routine.
Please find my full review at Rainbow Book Reviews
This collection turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting, and that made it even better. I got wonderful glimpses into each of the characters, with back stories that explained so much. I got to see Roan, still in uniform, and how he met Connor. I saw Holden, newly homeless after being kicked out because he was gay. I saw Kevin, at home, and his utter loneliness. Watching Fiona and Tank on their first date was a hoot. It was refreshing to see Roan and Dylan together doing a couple outing, and keeping Dylan away from fireworks. It was normal, and not usually how I got to see them. I adored seeing Darinda and her wife Kim, in their daily routine.
Please find my full review at Rainbow Book Reviews
April 19, 2017
Nice little snippets but nothing that felt like a full story.
May 20, 2016
Anthology of short stories from the Infected world, which will not work as a stand-alone. You need to familiarize yourself with Roan, Holden, Dylan, Grey, Tank, Scott, Fiona, and the rest of the gang.
Some of these were good (I especially enjoyed anything related to Roan and Dylan -- and that one story with Paris, which BROKE MY HEART) and some were forgettable (because it felt like a snapshot filler of these characters' lives). All in all it was a nice collection.
Some of these were good (I especially enjoyed anything related to Roan and Dylan -- and that one story with Paris, which BROKE MY HEART) and some were forgettable (because it felt like a snapshot filler of these characters' lives). All in all it was a nice collection.
January 23, 2023
This is for the fans of the series - a bunch of vignettes, not even really short stories since the plots don't get resolved (who killed the cougar, what happened to the two other loose cats?) These are about seeing our favorite character friends, in a variety of holiday settings - Roan as a young cop, Roan and Paris, Roan and Dylan, Fiona, Grey, Holden, Kevin, Tank and more. The span of these pieces across the series gives a fun bit of perspective to Roan's life, but mostly it's just moments spent with friends.
June 3, 2017
Every single one of the side characters in this series is awesome and so is this book. It reminded me that I miss the Infected universe so much and why haven't I read Infected: Holden already?
November 22, 2017
Little bits of the lives of all our "Infected" friends... who could ask for more? *grin*
May 18, 2016
What can I possibly say about characters I’ve spent nearly six years developing a deep and abiding love for? That they feel like friends, like the cousins you see once a year at the holidays, and then end up having so much fun with that you wonder why you don’t make an effort to see them more often? That you have such a weird connection to these characters and their stories that reading a collection of holiday vignettes can make you feel sentimental and bring you to tears because their loss has been your loss? That the uncertainty of their futures can nag at your heart just a bit because you know Andrea Speed has a history of not pulling any punches when it comes to this world she’s created over the course of nine books?
I guess all I can say is that if you’re already a fan of this series, you know exactly what I mean. And if you haven’t read this series yet, I sure wish you would because it’s one amazing boatload of Urban Fantasy wrapped around characters who have more personality in their little pixels than should be reasonable or possible.
In this short collection of flash fiction vignettes, Speed delves into the holidays—from Christmas to Arbor Day, Yom Kippur to St. Patrick’s Day—and allows us to dip into the lives of the small family of characters she’s built in this series. The stories are told from various points of view: We see the moment Roan met Connor. We see a scene through Paris’s eyes that left me a wee mess. We see all the people whose lives have touched Roan’s—Holden, Kevin, Dee, the hockey boys, Fiona, Darinda, Rosenberg. And Dylan. And we see the one common thread they share is their affection and love for a man who hit the biological motherlode when he was born a human/lion hybrid. A nerdy punk with a wicked sense of humor who is the king of his urban jungle, and is such an anomaly that it’s uncertain whether he’s a ticking time bomb or a miracle of genetics. Or both. Roan is both.
For those of us who already know and love this world, The Infected Holiday Special is both a gift and a gut-check. Yes, I cried but oddly enough, it was Grey’s final story, Ramadan, what done me in, man, because it was a reminder of an ending I never wanted to see come. But it’s also a beginning I’m anxious to see carry on in Infected: Holden. Because Holden is the best damned human doppelganger a lion virus child could ever have.
Stop right now if you’re even thinking about trying to read this book as a standalone. Don’t do it. These stories will mean little to nothing to you if you try, because to know and love these characters is to appreciate all the previous moments spent with them through all nine of the books in the Infected series. It’s the building of the world and the connections made along the way—again, with Roan as the fulcrum of the complex machinery that is the ties that bind everything—that are imperative to know beforehand. Likewise, if you’ve started but haven’t finished all the books in the series, don’t read this because you’ll find spoilers here.
If you are done with all the books in the series, though, read this one. Just do it. That is all.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.co...
I guess all I can say is that if you’re already a fan of this series, you know exactly what I mean. And if you haven’t read this series yet, I sure wish you would because it’s one amazing boatload of Urban Fantasy wrapped around characters who have more personality in their little pixels than should be reasonable or possible.
In this short collection of flash fiction vignettes, Speed delves into the holidays—from Christmas to Arbor Day, Yom Kippur to St. Patrick’s Day—and allows us to dip into the lives of the small family of characters she’s built in this series. The stories are told from various points of view: We see the moment Roan met Connor. We see a scene through Paris’s eyes that left me a wee mess. We see all the people whose lives have touched Roan’s—Holden, Kevin, Dee, the hockey boys, Fiona, Darinda, Rosenberg. And Dylan. And we see the one common thread they share is their affection and love for a man who hit the biological motherlode when he was born a human/lion hybrid. A nerdy punk with a wicked sense of humor who is the king of his urban jungle, and is such an anomaly that it’s uncertain whether he’s a ticking time bomb or a miracle of genetics. Or both. Roan is both.
For those of us who already know and love this world, The Infected Holiday Special is both a gift and a gut-check. Yes, I cried but oddly enough, it was Grey’s final story, Ramadan, what done me in, man, because it was a reminder of an ending I never wanted to see come. But it’s also a beginning I’m anxious to see carry on in Infected: Holden. Because Holden is the best damned human doppelganger a lion virus child could ever have.
Stop right now if you’re even thinking about trying to read this book as a standalone. Don’t do it. These stories will mean little to nothing to you if you try, because to know and love these characters is to appreciate all the previous moments spent with them through all nine of the books in the Infected series. It’s the building of the world and the connections made along the way—again, with Roan as the fulcrum of the complex machinery that is the ties that bind everything—that are imperative to know beforehand. Likewise, if you’ve started but haven’t finished all the books in the series, don’t read this because you’ll find spoilers here.
If you are done with all the books in the series, though, read this one. Just do it. That is all.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.co...
December 12, 2016
Quick reads set around various holidays. From Arbor Day to Diwali, and everything in between, thought not necessarily ABOUT those holidays. I loved seeing these characters again, Roan, Dylan, Holden, Gray, Scott, Dee, Paris. It's just great to be "in" this universe again. Definitely not for the uninitiated, you have to know the relationships and the dynamics to really appreciate this.
January 1, 2017
Always so good to be in Roan-verse.
March 9, 2018
I'm going for 5 stars, because I HATE anthologies...but I loved this.
At first I was loving every new little scene to add to my Infected addiction.
By the end, as it was mentioned that Roan was moving away, it made me sad...as I grew closer to the end, I realized I was that much closer to having no new Roan fixes.
I can't single out which one was my favorite. But I can't bath salt guy holding his toes in his hands, out of my head.
Okay...I want more spin offs. I NEED more books set in this word. Preferably with Roan, but I just want more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re-read 3/9/18
Quick little Infected fix. Just reminded me how much I miss this series. I'm very glad I still have a new Holden book to read, and the hope to see Roan in it. I miss the whole gang.
:::Shudder::: TOES!!!
At first I was loving every new little scene to add to my Infected addiction.
By the end, as it was mentioned that Roan was moving away, it made me sad...as I grew closer to the end, I realized I was that much closer to having no new Roan fixes.
I can't single out which one was my favorite. But I can't bath salt guy holding his toes in his hands, out of my head.
Okay...I want more spin offs. I NEED more books set in this word. Preferably with Roan, but I just want more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re-read 3/9/18
Quick little Infected fix. Just reminded me how much I miss this series. I'm very glad I still have a new Holden book to read, and the hope to see Roan in it. I miss the whole gang.
:::Shudder::: TOES!!!
May 21, 2016
Review at Prism Book Alliance
http://www.prismbookalliance.com/2016...
http://www.prismbookalliance.com/2016...
December 24, 2016
A series of holiday vignettes that showcase all of our favorite characters from the series at different times in their lives. This spans the entirety of the Infected series' timeline.
February 12, 2021
Nice snippets that either fills in some holes, gives back story, and/or gives glimpses into the Scooby hand dealing with Roan's move etc... I especially liked Gray in Roan's house.
September 18, 2022
it contains a variety of short stories some of them good and some seem more like fillers than anything else. I really enjoyed Valentine’s Day. It was nice to read about Roan and Paris again.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews