An expert blend of SF yarn, thriller, and romance that results in a compulsively readable and imaginative novel.
In Resau’s SF novel, a teenage girl travels to a tropical island to learn the secrets behind a tech empire and save her dying sister in the process.
The year is 2154 and 16-year-old Liv is on a mission to save her younger sister, Shell. Sickened by living in a “contaminated, off-limits zone by the Chesapeake Bay,” Shell is preserved in a state of suspended animation in which she’s “technically dead with the potential for revival.” But in only two months, her “hibernation” will max out and Shell will die forever. This situation compels Liv to join an internship program on a remote island, ostensibly to learn about the dazzling technological advances of the Virch Empire, the tech company responsible for making the virtual-reality lenses almost everyone wears. In reality, however, Liv intends to find a cure for her sister. She finds unexpected help when she meets Wolf, the rogue son of the Virch Empire’s founder. Disillusioned with his father’s work and at odds with his corrupted brother, Spiro, Wolf teams up with Liv as they stumble upon plans for Project Dragon—a horrific bioweapon that could help Wolf’s father gain the immortality he so desperately seeks. With Liv’s visionary lucid dreams guiding the way, she and Wolf struggle to find answers as they become increasingly unsure of what is reality and what is illusion. Resau has created a hero who is smart, determined, and vulnerable—a dynamic combination that is sure to keep readers hooked. While there are some lighthearted moments (high-tech gadgets like the virtual-reality “virchlenses” exist alongside old-fashioned hand sanitizers), the majority of the novel is a tense save-the-world journey leavened by a budding romance. Quick pacing and naturalistic dialogue, along with a series of authentic twists and turns, make for an action-packed yet frequently philosophical look at what makes us human.
An expert blend of SF yarn, thriller, and romance that results in a compulsively readable and imaginative novel.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781958109502
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Owl Hollow Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
