Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Nova (Nova 1) by Margaret Fortune

Science Fiction

From Goodreads:

*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

Nova was not at all what I expected.  As I started reading it was more like a YA book with a 16 year old main character.  2/3 of the way through it took an unexpected twist.

That twist made Lia’s mission something entirely different.  Then there was a discovery that seemed to lead to a much different ending. I was surprised.  Even though the entire book had been leading up to it I did not expect it to end as it did.

What I liked was that unexpected twist that made this an entirely different story from what it seemed at the beginning.  I did find the story a little slow at the beginning.  Lia spends a lot of time trying to remember who and what she is.  While it was part of the build up to the twist it really was not as much of a mystery to me, the reader, as it was to Lia.

There were two very interesting secondary characters who were important to the story and Lia.  Michael and his sister Teal are the two Lia interacts with the most and in the end the two who help her complete her mission.

Nova is a good addition to the Science Fiction world.  Pick it up and see if you are as surprised as I was to see why Lia was a human bomb.

Nova is book one in a new series.  It will be interesting to see where the story goes from here.  Lia and her mission are just the beginning.  I will be looking for the next book in the series to see what happens next.


Daw published Nova by Margaret Fortune in 2015.

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