Seb Kirby Brings Readers Another Great Psychological Suspense Novel!

Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. 

But it still remains broken. --Harlan Coben

I’m lost in a dark, dark place and, try as hard as I can, nothing helps me to understand. When I seek answers, I see only broken shards of my past, flashes lighting this darkest of places for an instant, shining bright then fading as soon as they appear. Fragments of time, light and dark, great joy and great sadness, overlapping incidents in my life that I thought were lost forever. And when I look again, it’s as if what I’ve just seen has never existed.
I open my eyes and look around...facing a woman who looks at me with care and concern. I say the only thing I need to say. “Where am I?” She smiles at me. “You’re at the Pinetree Medical Practice. I’m your doctor, Jane Wilson.” 
“How did I get here?” 
“Your friend Marianne brought you here.” 
“Why would she do that?” 
The doctor looks up from the notes she’s making on her screen. “Because you’re distressed.” She pauses. “Can you tell me why you’re feeling so anxious?” 
I don’t know why she’s asking me this. Why should I trust anything she says when she won’t tell me where I am? “I don’t know.” 
She keeps prying. “What can you tell me about the last twenty-four hours?” 
“I can’t. It’s a blank.” “And that’s why you’re distressed?” How could she know how this feels? I’m alone, lost in a cold emptiness with no way back home. Why can’t she be straight with me? “I don’t know. Just tell me where I am?”
“You’re with me, your doctor, Jane Wilson, at the Pinetree Medical Centre.” 
“How did I get here?
 “Your friend brought you. Do you remember her name?” 
I’m so alone, how could she tell me I have a single friend in this world? “I can’t recall anyone bringing me here.” 
The doctor returns her attention to the screen. “I’m going to ask you some questions. They’re going to help me find out what’s wrong with you. Is that all right?” 
“If it will help.”
 “OK. Tell me about yourself. What’s your name?” 
I know who I am. No one can take that away from me. “Isobel Cunningham. Issy to my friends." 
“So, you won’t mind if I call you Issy?" 
“That’s fine.” 
“And where do you live?” I know that, too. “Bentham Gardens. Apartment 21.” 
“And how old are you?” 
“Forty-one next birthday.” God, I’m that old? 
“Any brothers or sisters.” “I’m an only child.”
 “You’re married?” “To John. We’re divorced.”
“Any children?” I feel a jolt of pain as she asks me this. I don’t know why I should feel this way. I give her the only answer I can, the one I need to give. “No children.” “And your parents?”
“Jenny and Tom. They’re separated. She lives in Reading.” I can say this, but if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t see them. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them. 
“Spell WORLD.” Now she’s saying I’m stupid. Who would ever want to ask a forty-one year old woman that?
“Why wouldn’t I be able to spell it?” 
“Just try.” 
“OK. W-O-R-L-D.”
 “That’s fine. Tell me, Issy, do you suffer from migraine?” “I don’t know. I just want you to tell me where I am, how I got here.” The way she’s acting, you’d think I’d just asked her that. Why can’t she just level with me?
The doctor returns to her on-screen notes. “Your records show that in fact you do suffer from migraine. You’ve been managing attacks for the last three years, linked to periods of stress, as often as not.” 
“If you say.”
“Where do you work?” I can feel a pain tightening in my abdomen. A shadow of something or someone heading towards me. “Ardensis Partners.” 
“And what’s that?”
“It’s an ad agency. I’m a consultant there.” 
“So there’s the stress.” The doctor takes in a deep breath. “Issy, you’re confused and disorientated. You know all the details about who you are and about your family and where you live and work, yet you’ve lost your bearings somehow and that’s what’s making you feel so distressed.” 
“There may be a physical cause. I’d like to take a look at you, if that’s OK?” 
Now she wants to touch me. There was someone who touched me last. Someone I trusted. Someone I don’t want to trust again. I remove my clothes and lie on the table. “I just want you to tell me why I’m here. Where I am...”

~~~

Sugar for Sugar
A Gripping Psychological Thriller

By Seb Kirby

I greatly enjoy reading books by Seb Kirby. Check out my reviews of Take No More and Each Day I Wake. If you enjoy psychological suspense, do consider this author, starting with today's, which I read in one day... It is fantastic!

It is difficult to imagine losing parts or all of your memory. As we grow older, many of us lose our thoughts such as what we were looking for--it may take a while but we usually do remember. But  Issy Cunningham had become unable to remember her recent and immediate memories. She would ask questions such as to "Where am I?" but would then immediately forget the answer so that she would ask over and over...

Lesley pauses from taking notes.
 “So, how was Mr. Aspinal
when he was in charge?”
 Marianne leans forward and
 lowers her voice. “I don’t want
 to speak ill of the dead but if
 you don’t get this from me
you’ll certainly get it from just
 about anyone else here. To
 put it simply, he’s been a disaster.
 You know what they say. 
All power corrupts.” Ives cuts in.
 “It went to his head?”
 “In Mike’s case you might
 say that.” She pauses.
 “Oh, don’t get me wrong,
Vince thought he’d made a good
 choice when he appointed Mike
 as acting CEO while he was
 away. But from the start it’s
 been one of the worst decisions
 he’s ever made.”
~~~ 

But this was not just a medical issue that resulted from her being assaulted... She remembered she was divorced and in her early dreams she remembered loving her husband....

But she couldn't remember the traumatic event which happened years ago that had begun changing her...

And she certainly didn't remember, or even know, that her boss had been murdered the same night of her assault...

The police had already found from security cameras that she had been with him that night...but she remembered nothing...

The only fortunate thing for Issy, which in her condition, was that her boss, who had been acting on an interim basis, had been so cruel as a boss--telling everybody that he would get things in good shape while he was in charge--that he had made everybody hate him at work...

Detective Inspector Stephen Ives, a 25-year-veteran still grieves for each individual who has been killed during criminal activities, not understanding the willingness for humans to consider life so lightly... He has a personal bias against "creatives" who work in advertising, so he struggles hard not to allow his feelings to become part of this investigation. But as a meticulous officer, he is soon finding evidence that supports Issy being involved... 

Was the rape assault too much for her to deal with... But why, then, did they find evidence in her office that would lead to an assumption of pre-planning?!

There are other persons of interest as well and the investigation becomes more and more complicated, while at the same time, Issy has more and more flashbacks that is filling in the blanks of her memory... and the memory of her losses bring back all the heartbreak she had faced those many years again...But at least she now knew why she was divorced. 

Because of the specific type of loss she was experiencing, she began to make notes as a reference to ensure she didn't lose what memories she'd already regained... So far...

I find the phone and stare at the notes there. 

Why did Colin need my help? 

Mary is a good friend. 

I should have trusted my mother. 

John, how did I ever lose you? 

Mike is dead. Why do I feel so guilty? 

Colin behaves like he owes me. 

How I love you, Kelly.

The ending was certainly a surprise and could not have been foreseen. Yes, there were several clues, but not enough to even guess at what happened! And, is that what makes a totally satisfying closure...Well, almost... I had to wonder if there would be a followup to this story...Surely, there had to be something good come out of this...that's my opinion; my hope!

GABixlerReviews

Seb Kirby is the author of the James Blake Thriller series (TAKE NO MORE, REGRET NO MORE and FORGIVE NO MORE), the Raymond Bridges sci fi thriller series (DOUBLE BIND) and the psychological thriller EACH DAY I WAKE. The new stand alone psychological thriller SUGAR FOR SUGAR, available now.

He says: "I've been an avid reader from an early age - my grandfather ran a mobile lending library in Birmingham and when it closed my parents inherited many of the books. From the first moment I was hooked. Now, as a full-time writer myself, it's my goal to add to the magic of the wonderful words and stories I discovered back then."

Sheila Deeth's Second Novel, Infinite Sum, Now Out!

From the author who took us to... Paradise...  comes a new novel. A novel that is edgy and full of suspense, yet sensitively woven around the life of one individual, Sylvia...

Sylvia grew up in the area that includes Paradise. She was there when dangerous things were going on... Remember the woods?

Now she's an adult with children and, fortunately, a husband who loves her, even with...her issues...

You see there are parts of her past that she doesn't remember. Other times she becomes deeply depressed and unable to function as she should. The one thing that has helped her throughout her life is her love for art, for creating images of people around her, of the world around her, and, sometimes, what happens to her... But there are times even that doesn't work...

“Don’t try to decide what you’re going to paint,” says the teacher, and I wonder; if I don’t decide to dab my brush in paint, does he think some glorious image will appear unaided?

“Don’t restrict yourself.” But I’m bound by the page.

“Let inspiration arise from your subconscious. Set it free.”

The teacher’s voice rises skyward with his words, and I watch him lift manicured hands, so very consciously and theatrically. But we’re working in a warehouse, under a lofty ceiling of snaking conduits and tangled wires. Around us, deliberately inspiring objects are artfully displayed—paintings, sculptures, a vase of flowers, a crooked pile of boxes covered in cloth. Distant spotlights splash the walls, while layers of gauze and canvas tumble down in wild abandon. In the midst of it all, we painters guard our easels, proudly wearing our different shapes and styles, eagerly devouring the teacher’s wondrous wisdom, and ready for art.

But my subconscious really doesn’t feel like inspiring anything. My hand holds the paintbrush, level with my eyes, as if I’m measuring angles or judging the shade for some curious tone. But I’m staring pointlessly at flowers. Yellow roses, tipped and veined with red; I mourn them as they dangle over the rim of a glass vase. Their feathered heads promise magic in that precious moment before falling. And then, in silence, one lonely petal drops. I let my paintbrush dip and stroke its sunset onto the page and think, yeah great; this is me, inspired by dying flowers.

Colors, shapes of blooms and stems; I add them to my canvas, and my hands are painting fast. Wash blue with white for the vase’s pure translucency. Bite my tongue and feel my lungs expand as breath swells fiercely through my head. I dip and stroke, streak and lie, bend and rise until my kneecaps ache. Red clings to tipping tips of petals while darkness piles its urgency behind, and angles bend with a flower’s sharpening shot at eternity. Ruined lives are encased in the vase’s delicate glass, and my fingers flash with ease.

“Let inspiration arise from your subconscious,” the teacher repeats.

I’m in the zone. Then I wake and he’s announcing it’s time to go home.

The canvas in front of me is filled with red and black. Broken petals swell with decay, laid out on a layer of coal. Shattered flowers lie torn and dead and scattered, never to return. What did my subconscious have in mind?

~~~

Edgy!

Introspective!

Revelatory!

Haunting!

Infinite Sum

By Sheila Deeth

I’m a mom. I’m married, and I have three sons. I worked as a computer programmer before the kids were born, and I used to be a mathematician. But I’m also a wannabe artist who dreams in color and longed color and longed to be famous once.

Art, color, nightmares, and the subconscious; they’re all a mystery, filled with possibilities of hope and change. But math is different. Math is real and solid, right or wrong, with no uncertainties. Art plays games, while math follows rules. Art soars, and math measures its path. Art takes you where you don’t want to go. But math lets you stay unmoving, right where you are.

Measures don’t change just because your mind gets distracted. Integers don’t shatter and their edges won’t cut. They’re not sharp. Real numbers don’t paint in red and black. And equations never land you in therapy.

The teacher laughed when he saw my
 blasted roses the other day.
“You obviously needed to get something
out of your system, Sylvia.”

There again, equations probably don’t land you in art class either. But I’m giving my dreams one final fling before going back to work. I’ve promised Donald I’ll get a job when Adam turns ten; use those hard-learned mathematical skills; sum those graduate letters after my name into a winning résumé, though I’m not sure they sum to me. Donald says pictures won’t sum to anything, but excuses my time here because “You always liked painting,” as if we’re discussing a nice new shade of pink for the bathroom wall. Still, time’s gone by and all I produce are sheets of stabbing red and angry gray. Black lines like prison bars don’t pictures make.

~~~

I was honored to be asked to be an early reader of Sheila Deeth's second novel, Infinite Sum, and to see it now out! Deeth has a tremendous skill in being able to create a character's internal life, as if readers personally are meeting a new individual, one they immediately are attracted to and someone with whom you would like to be friends. And when you learn more about that individual's life and learn about the pain and anguish faced by that individual, you, too, feel those feelings--wanting in some way to help your friend...in this case...remember...

Meet Sylvia (played by Samantha James)... We are sympatico... There is one difference, however. I remember everything traumatic that has ever happened to me, that has affected my mental and emotional life. Sylvia has not... What Sylvia does have though are all of the pictures that she ever drew while she was growing up.

Sylvia's youngest son has now turned 10. She was supposed to return to work then--that was the agreement with her husband. Obviously, readers will realize that she is not ready to go back to work. She has started back with her therapist. Perhaps she was wanting to get ready for the work environment. But as slowly as she has been going, her therapist has suggested that Sylvia go through her art work. I'm not sure this was a good idea--is it always important that we understand our feelings? Yes, I have to admit that I do think it is important, even if what she discovers will hurt... At least then you can choose what to do with those feelings, rather than remaining in a world where you know something is missing... Or, maybe, you will understand why you are afraid not to be there, at home, when your son comes home from school... afraid that something will hurt him, if  you are not there to protect him from danger...

Next meeting she wants me to tell her what happened, using words instead of pictures. Why?

“Because then you might realize what you’re trying to hide.”

I’m not hiding anything.

“So tell me,” she says, while I settle back on the sofa. “Tell me about the first time you met him. What was the weather like?”

“Raining.”

But dryer in the forest I remember, and beautiful in that clearing when the sun came out.

The figure at the edge of the trees watches me. Sunlight blazes in front of him; shadows of trees and water loom behind. Is that a head maybe, a leg? Is this perhaps an arm? But it’s not clear. It could be

someone slinking, hiding in shade. Or it could be just the way I chose to render the shapes of trees.

I walked home alone from school that day. Bad idea, but nobody knew there was anything wrong in the park back then. It was spring in my first year of Junior High. I didn’t feel like a new girl anymore. I knew my way around. And I could have caught the activity bus, should have I suppose, but it was always so crowded, rocking with noise and boys who’d stayed late for sports. I might not find a seat. After art class all I wanted was a bit of peace.

It was raining, I remember, that heavy spring rain that tries to wash the memory of winter away—rain that drips down the back of your neck and splashes up from the ground to soak your legs. The sky kept switching from thick gray clouds to glimpses of summer blue. There should have been a rainbow I guess, but then, my life was full of should-have-beens.

I should have been home earlier, Mom would say. Should have been doing my homework. Should have taken extra math not art. Should have walked with Sharon to the gates. I should have told them when I first knew. Should have made Lydia stay at home. Should have worn a different

skirt, a different shirt. Should never have gone out looking like that and especially not to school, and not to the woods. Should sing louder in church.

I could have taken the main path through the park. It was wide and well-lit, well-travelled, and went from the wrought iron gates up and over the hill. But puddles had turned its paving stones to lakes the night before. Small waterfalls splashed with every step, and rain seeped in through the seams in my school shoes.

I’m not sure why I thought cutting through the trees would be any dryer, but I did it anyway.

Spring leaves caught the downpour, softening it, flavoring it with hints of minty green. The rain took on a slippery sound instead of incessant drumming. The ground was slick, soft and wet with mud, while autumn’s debris lay scattered like pages of a book. I started to run, my backpack banging heavily, my arms outstretched for balance as I skidded between downed branches and withering trunks. Then I saw the clearing and had to stop and gaze...

This time the figure of the man is closer, approaching in front of the trees. He looks like a shadow untethered from the forest all around. Sun makes a halo behind his head with smudges of white on his shoulders, as if he’s an angel in disguise, mistakenly dressed in black. He casts no shadow.

I turn the page.

I tried to show how fast the figure moved, with lines at his back; mooring lines for a ship perhaps as he strains to leave the page. The trees are rendered lovingly with lacework of branches and leaves. But the man, the figure, is a shadow, nothing more—no features, just a hollow blackness tethered by trailing lines.

I turn again.

This picture’s filled with a face drawn too close to the eye, pencil dust still bleeding from the thickness of the gloom. Wisps of hair escape from a circular frame like a baseball cap. The chin’s shaded in lines drawn straight as rain, a beard perhaps. Flat cheeks, sharp nose with nostril hairs—the head’s tilted upward and the artist sees from below. Thick lips jut out. Black shadows hide the eyes under smooth-drawn lines for the edge of his cap.

I remember the angle, me looking up at him, while gentle breezes blew their scents of spring. Wind from the office’s heating blows over the paper, rustling it, reminding me of leaves.

Another picture shows another face. This time the perspective’s different; the position too. Parted lips take center stage as if the artist can’t

take her eyes from them. Lines and shadows hint at a tongue and teeth hiding between. But around the mouth the face has faded to patches of light and shade. There’s none of that bright white left behind when an eraser hides the features—this picture looks more like the artist never saw or bothered to draw them. Black holes for eyes, pale lump of a nose, but everything blunt-pencil shaded around the clear-drawn, intricate, shape of somebody’s bearded lips.

I stare at this one for a while, but still it doesn’t come clear. The man—why do I think I must have known him? He remains a stranger on the page, well hidden behind the black and white and gray.

The next picture is nothing but hands. Clasped hands, empty hands, open hands, closed hands, blunt-nailed hands, short-fingered hands, but ever, only, hands. They pass through, over, under each other, ghost hands and solid together, some bits erased while others raggedly remain. Impossibly twisted hands. Hands everywhere.

And underneath, covered, hidden away, pale lines like broken memories scar the page. Something’s almost invisible, drawn over and almost lost.

I see the girl from the clearing again, backpack, dark hair, short skirt, hands raised in the air.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

The next sketches are abstract, easy to ignore. I turn them over, one by one, waiting for something to spark a sign of hope. Sharp lines make shapes with eyes, nose, lips and tongues drawn into triangles and squares. They overlap, slide underneath, and peak from hidden edges, stop and stare.

In one there are just two pairs of eyes, one beetle-browed and dark in a rectangular box, one wide and white. Guilt and innocence bound or fated to unite?

Reality intervenes again when I come to a picture of a tree. Tall trunk, wide branches—the bark’s well-drawn, black-webbed with crinkled lines and layers of shade. The leaves—spring leaves—have grown from bud to green and form a glowing canopy now, no signs of snow. The ground is mixed, dry grass, damp earth, fall’s skeletal detritus awaiting summer’s cleansing rain. I admire the shading, the way I’ve mixed the pencils...

~~~

But there is something, someone behind that Tree, a flash of a foot???

By using the exploration of past art work, Deeth easily takes readers back, back into Sylvia's early life... We see Sylvia living on a farm with her grandparents and her  parents wanting to find another place--their own home--to live. But, when they finally did move, quickly, Sylvia was very upset and longed to stay there on the farm... Then we move on as Sylvia grows older, goes to school, but cannot accept that they no longer visit the farm where she loved the bull they had and the joy of seeing new kittens. After all they had been her friends, since her older siblings rarely wanted to play with her... and called her "silly sissy"... Sylvia didn't have many friends...

Sheeth is brilliant in setting up the suspense right from the beginning...some is almost torturous to the reader, as well as the character, as she explores her past through past scenes she once created--with her family, on the farm, in the woods...Then another flashback and she knows there must be...more... Will she ever really remember? Can she be free from her past and live a fulfilling family life?

I think what most amazed me was the ending...Sylvia had been so caught up with what she was living, and reliving, that she had not really heard Donald, her husband, when he had tried to talk to her, to tell her what was happening in his own life...How would she handle the news he shared; i.e., when she heard it for the very first time? An amazing story. If you are willing to be totally caught up into the inner life that can either break or make a woman, you just might think this is a must-read. For me, there was much to learn, to ponder, and, finally, realize that you can move on from bad memories...


GABixlerReviews

Tagline

Mongrel Christian Mathematician

Introduction         

Author, book reviewer, "fearful leader" of local writers' group...

Bragging rights

3 kids, all grown up, Masters degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University England

Here's a sample of another artist Sheila has written about...

Mind's Eye By Douglas E. Richards Exhilarating Look at Future in Scifi Thriller

Or was he insane already? No.
It couldn’t be. He felt totally rational.
And totally sane. He laughed out loud.
 Sure, he thought. I’m as sane and rational
as any other guy without a memory
 who wakes up in a dumpster and
 hears voices in his head.
~~

The stench was so utterly horrid that it seemed to be attacking him. It was the putrid stink of rot and of food gone bad. It was an unholy soup of dozens of odors that each would have been bad enough alone, but which seemed to clash in revolting and impossible ways when forced together. Panic squeezed his heart to near bursting as he realized he was drowning in this noxious cloud. He fought desperately to take a breath, but this act was somehow impossible. It was as though he had forgotten how, as if the mental wiring that triggered his breathing response had been neatly snipped. His burning lungs screamed at him for air, and he knew he had but seconds to live. 
Suddenly, from the depths of his panic, an epiphany burst forth. He wasn’t drowning. Instead, he was in the middle of a terrible nightmare, and his breathing reflex was only failing in the vivid dream world his mind had constructed. His physical body was asleep and paralyzed. He threw all of his will into tearing off the crushingly heavy cloak of unconsciousness,  and an instant later his full mind exploded to the surface, like a swimmer held down too long in the depths of a cold and murky ocean, and escaping just in time. Now fully conscious, albeit groggy, he felt the weight of eyelids that were shuttering his vision. He heard whispers in his mind; dozens of them. He could catch words and phrases; images. A kaleidoscope of activity just below the surface, blending together into a white noise; incessant chatter from hundreds of non-stop talkers all speaking at once. He shook his head to try to stop the maddening whispers in his mind, but without success. He anxiously opened his eyes. And was greeted by an absolute, impenetrable darkness...

~~

Mind's Eye

By Douglas E. Richards

Many science fiction novels are based upon actual research which has been explored. While recognizing that a writer puts the emotional fear and thriller components, I just had to see if and how long this research to implant control units in the brain  has been underway... And it's much longer than I imagined! Now I'm wondering just how far the potential has advanced...

The potential to use and control the Internet with your mind! I've been a Trekkie from the beginning, watching Star Trek and imagining living in a time when you could tell a machine to fix your next cup of tea...LOL... Now that I'm older, though, I am much more cautious about what the future may hold due to scientific experimentation...

It's bad enough when you awake in the darkness of a garbage dumpster and look around in fear trying to figure out where you are and what's happened...

But when you get out and find you are being hunted by "real people" with real guns, you've got to go into hyper-drive wondering, What the...???

Shit! he thought, almost hysterically.
He was dead! Hall clutched at the small 
sink for support,
reeling. He had killed a man. 
Hall didn’t remember who he was,
but he was certain he had never killed
 before. Bile rose in his throat as he
 pondered taking a life. Even though the
 man had been intent on taking his, Hall
suspected he would have puked if his
 stomach wasn’t totally empty.
~~~

Fortunately Hall was intelligent. Even though he had lost his memory and gained other abilities, he was able to quickly assimilate and pull together information into conceptual ideas. It didn't take any major skills, however, for him to realize that he could read the minds of people around him. No, in wasn't cool! He was quickly immersed in dozens of different conversations from all the people around him, hearing every words.. and, worse, learning that people really weren't very nice, even when they didn't realize another individual knew what they were thinking!
But he at least had learned that he was a Marine Biologist...

The man continued approaching, with practiced quiet. Hall’s five senses couldn’t have possibly detected that he was outside and approaching, let alone his precise position, but the sixth sense Hall now possessed could see from his attacker’s eyes, so he could judge with uncanny accuracy when to launch his attack. 

He whipped open the door with all of the speed and strength at his command, just as the man in his mind’s eye began to raise his gun, and was rewarded when the door handle slammed into the man’s outstretched hand, sending his gun flying. The assassin stifled a scream, and reflexively brought his now bloodied paw to eye level to assess the damage, discovering that at least two of his fingers were now broken.
Hall dived for the man’s gun, having no time to ponder this verification that his ESP was real, after all, and highly accurate.                                                                                     ~~~

It was unnerving to be eavesdropping on somebody's telephone call or conversations in order to discover what his probable name was and that somebody wanted him dead! He learned that it was Frank Bardino, a mob hit man, who was trying to kill him and right now he was fuming because Hall obviously had training and skills that had allowed him to capture him... And that he was supposed to be an easy science target. This guy certainly had a lot more going for him than he had been told! 

He had earlier identified the place on his head where it appeared he had been hurt. Now he was ascertaining that some type of implant had been placed in his brain which allowed him to think what he wanted to know and quickly be connected to the Internet...but was that the reason for the ESP he also had--and why had he lost all of his personal memory?

Nevertheless, he definitely knew one thing. He had to keep running... and it was at the next place--some type of office rental space building, that he busted into what he thought was an empty office. But she was there... And he couldn't read her with his ESP!

I liked Megan Emerson, the character Hall hooks up with, saving her life and killing two more men... I wondered whether her creative mind was part of the reason he could not read her thoughts... But, they did discover that they could talk telepathically which added a very cool dimension to the story! And, of course, along the way, they started to feel a personal connection...

Soon, not only the original guys who had been sent to kill him, but the federal government was after the couple. Word of his abilities--Hall had originally written an email and sent it to both the government and newspapers, but had not remembered doing it--was out. For the good or bad results! And there is no way for readers to know which, so we keep reading just to keep up with what exciting things are happening! 

Finally, Hall was able to piece things together from the Internet, locate where he had been and make contact with a representative of the company which had originally been doing the research--at least as much as they knew of the overall project!

High tension, cool futuristic possibilities along with unbridled fear of what could happen with so much control by one individual... Well you get the picture! This SciFi hypothesis is one of the best I've read and certainly worth your further exploration... But stay away from those who implant!!! LOL...


GABixlerReviews

Douglas E. Richards has been widely praised for his ability to weave action, suspense, and science into riveting novels that straddle the thriller and science fiction genres. He is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of WIRED, AMPED, THE CURE, MIND'S EYE, and QUANTUM LENS (October 1, 2014). He has also written six middle grade/young adult novels widely acclaimed for their appeal to boys, girls, and adults alike.

A former biotech executive, Richards earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago. In recognition of his work, Richards was selected to be a "special guest" at San Diego Comic-Con International, along with such icons as Stan Lee and Ray Bradbury. He has written numerous feature articles for the award-winning magazine, National Geographic KIDS--some having appeared in a dozen languages in as many as sixteen countries--as well as essays for the BBC, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Earth & Sky, Today's Parent, and many others.

The author currently lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, two children, and two dogs. Please feel free to friend him on Facebook at Douglas E. Richards Author, or write to him at doug@san.rr.com

Unique YA Mystery, Loud Awake and Lost, by Adele Griffin, Simple Fantastic...

I got back from lunch to find they'd cleaned out my room. They'drius even taken my nameplate off the door. According to Addington Hospital, Ember Leferrier had already left the building.

And I would be on my way, in just a few minutes. Strange that I'd slept in the narrow metal bed for eight months. Looking around, I could already feel my time here losing shape. I'd never felt real at Addington, I'd never been me ,  

lik. I'd been a restoration project, and now I was done... 

Yep, I was finished. I was gone... 

Fragile. Freezing. Lonely. I felt crudely refashioned, like a Frankenstein monster. Barely on this earth, like a ghost...

But the terror didn't hit me until I
buckled in. My parents had driven up
in their new Prius--a different car,
of course, from the family Volvo that
I'd totaled. They'd leased it some
months ago, but I'd never seen it...

loud awake and lost:

Which one of me has come home?

                                                                            By Adele Griffin

Don't mind telling you that I'd love to see this author write at least one adult book! This novel was my first of her books and, whether YA or not, it caught my attention and kept me totally unaware what would finally happen! Very cool ending!

Ember Leferrier had just been released from the hospital after having been in an almost fatal car accident. She had gone over a bridge and her injuries were so bad, including some head trauma, that she had been in Addington Hospital for 18 months. 

Ember had been aching to get out, but now that her parents had picked her up, in a new car, of course, she began to have doubts, concerns about living outside, even with her parents! Of course she'd seen them during that time, but even now, in coming home, she could feel some type of barrier...neither of them was comfortable and, of course, neither was Ember. She still didn't know or remember a lot about what had happened...and even before the accident! As of now, her doctor couldn't tell her whether any of her memories would return...

Her first surprise was going straight to her bedroom when they got home and seeing things she'd never seen before: A ticket stub for a German Movie???  A black business card for a club? and then the poster! (NOT the same band, closest I could get...)

My heart was pounding. But I hadn't heard this band's music. I hadn't tacked up this poster. Or bought those. Or seen that. Okay, okay, calm down. This must have happened inside the memory sinkhole. The missing weeks. Dr. P and I had shared multiple discussions about this...

Rachel's lips thinned as she glanced at the poster.

"Sorry, I'm not big on Weregirl. Sorta forgot that

 you went fangirl right before the accident."

                                            ~~~

Not very long after they had gotten home, Ember's best friend, Rachel showed up. Although she had ran upstairs and given her a big hug almost crushing Ember, there were a few times that Rachel caught Ember off-guard and confused with what she said, especially when she asked her about Weregirl's music... Like, she thought Weregirl sucked... 

Ember didn't know how to react, so she said something small back, sarcastically laughing that she was glad Rachel found it funny that she had lost part of her brain.

They kept trying to get over their having not seen each other for so long, but then Rachel said "I'm so glad you're back...And the best part is I can tell it's the real you..."

Ember quickly asked what she meant by the "real me?"

But Rachel had quickly just hugged her and talked about how she had missed her. Ember, though she might forgive Rachel, didn't stop wondering--what had happened to her in the weeks she was unable to remember?

Ember and her parents had always been close but it seemed to Ember that they were smothering her, especially her mother, who didn't seem to want her to do anything but go to stay home. She didn't even want her to go back to school right away--Ember didn't want to either but both her and her Dad said she was so far behind that she couldn't afford to take anymore time off.

Everybody was excited to see Ember back at school. She had been a member of the dance group and fairly popular, but she noticed that everybody, even kids who had not been her friends, knew about the accident and was anxious to learn more about what had happened. And as each little thing confused her, she wanted more and more to regain her memories. She decided to do as much as she could to out more about those things in her room, as well as followup on her parents comment that she'd been hanging with new friends!

On Friday of that first week, she forgot everything and went looking for the club that had been on the black card; she remembered the address... But when she got there it was just an old warehouse and she tried to find some place where she could look in to see more... Once she was there, she was ready to leave by a fire escape entrance but sat down to rest... She still got tired easily.

"You scared me!"
"You scared me, too." He laughed as he pushed the window up and then swung a leg out, then another, so that he was sitting on the ledge. I could tell he wasn't nearly as startled as I was as we stared each other down.
"But you really scared me. I'm serious." My hands flew to my flushed cheeks.
"Sorry," he repeated. "Once I saw you, I didn't want to lose you. That's all Red. I'm harmless." He smiled. "I'm Kai."

He was there when she awoke. His name was Kai and both knew they were immediately attracted to each other. But with everything happening she decided to keep her new friend a secret. When she got home, her ex-boyfriend, Rachel and parents were all in a panic! She had been scheduled for a party with her friends, who had already left, and she'd forgotten all about it!

She was remembering more and more and had connected with more of her friends, who had graduated, but were part of the dance activity when she was still in... And slowly, she began to hear about Anthony...

This is indeed an exciting, suspenseful mystery. But it was also about a "coming of age" for a young girl who had begun to feel lost in her own life. She had quit dance, had become involved with dancing in clubs and drinking instead. She was enjoying new friends, even though she still considered and cared for her old friends. But when her memory is lost and she had forgotten all that had been decisions she had already made but had not remembered, she was even more confused as all of her old friends came running back into her life, acting as if nothing had changed within her. But she knew it had--if she could only remember what had changed...

Thoughtful things for a young girl to think of as a learning experience while all wrapped up in the fabulous story! Highly recommended for YA and above! I loved it!


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