Donna is a research scientist, who has just changed jobs. Torn between two companies, several men, and a global conspiracy, she finds herself involved in finding a cancer cure, immortality and dealing with a potential extinction level event. This is book one in a series, so not all of these plot threads are tied up.

This is a very long book at 494 pages. It was written by two authors, a husband and wife team, one focusing on science and one on romance. Although the prose style does not change, the two different plots do.

The cover is actually better in thumbnail. It is a drawing of DNA helixes, chromosomes and bugs overlaid on a photograph, which looks extremely good in small size, but the flaws are revealed when it expands. Internal formatting is basic and clear, although the several dashes to signal a scene change are something not often used.

The main problem I have with this book is the price: £11.84. If I had been browsing normally and not found it free, I would have passed it up just for that, since I don’t buy ebooks that cost more than hardbacks. However it has deeper problems than this.

In a fundamental flaw, two of the lead characters have the same first name. There are a few glaring typos and spelling mistakes, but none that a spellchecker would catch (e.g. “is male of female)”. The real problems started when I realised I was ten percent of the way into the book, and I actually did not care about these characters. I was forty percent in when the discussion of an Extinction level event set my teeth on edge. First, we have the technology in the present day to avert the situation given, second, the effects have been calculated and are not what the authors think (research into Triton, Europa, and Io would have helped). Also a research scientist is not a medical doctor, surgeon or an anaesthetist, so asking her to put someone under and perform surgery seems odd.

I can’t put my finger on what exactly it was about this book, but I found myself skimming instead of reading. It never grabbed me and pulled me into the story. The heroine is extremely passive and seems to respond to situations rather than taking action. She is so reactive it feels as thought I never really get a feel for her personality, which has inherent contradictions. For example, she is incredibly intelligent and yet she doesn’t read an employment contract before signing. Characters are refered to by a lot of different names, not just by the other characters but in the text itself, sometimes making it hard to follow. The footnotes, of which there are more than a few, don’t help either.

Book two promises nanites, resurrection of the brain-dead, and more confusing names. I won’t be reading it.

2 stars and a bland ‘meh’.