2022
Ken Kroes
Hope performs a cunning murder to cover the slip that could destroy the organisation she works for. Olivia tries to finalise a virus. Richard sees the bigger picture. Together they will bring about distruction, both intentional and unintentional.
Ah! The twists! Ah! The turns! Ah! The betrayal! Ah! The suspense! Loved it. I really can’t tell you more about the plot without ruining some things that go one, but please go and get a copy to find out for yourself.
The author worried about me taking apart the science, but it was actually very doable. Some of the things they talked about, such as engineering a virus or breeding humans in a particular way, are doable now. Not that we geneticists would ever admit to it 😉 It also talks about missions to Mars, which are happening now (I think?).
The book promised me romance, but there wasn’t too much of it. It wasn’t enough to stop things from happening, and there wasn’t really any lovey-dovey business to detract from the storyline. Instead it was used as a hold on all of the people, nothing was sacred.
The thing that stopped me giving this book 5 stars was the usual ‘telling, not showing’. Despite the sentences being crafted carefully and being dramatically correct, I felt like they were too dry. I could never really immerse myself in the world, because it was so dry. I’m not sure how better to describe it.
I must say that the world building here was beautiful. I could see Sue’s office, experience the RV lifestyle, and get my mind inside the colonies. Amazing. This is eco-terrorism as a plot device, more well thought out than in the Alex Rider series.
The author warned me that there would be a ‘serving of broccoli’, which is to say it addresses some worrying trends in the current environmental climate (haha, see what I did there?). But that’s not a big issue at all. The main text is used to forward the story, and the notes at the end give us more details if needed. It’s a wakeup that many people need to have.
I can’t wait to read the second and third novels in this series, as they are likely to be a huge change from this one. I fortunately have them sitting on my shelf, so stay tuned for a review.
