Synopsis
She can uncover the truth, if she defeats her demons
Ex-neuroscientist Carina struggles with a drug problem, her conscience, and urges to kill. She satisfies her cravings in dreams, fuelled by the addictive drug ‘Zeal’. Now she’s heading for self-destruction – until she has a vision of a dead girl.
Sudice Inc. damaged Carina when she worked on their sinister brain-mapping project, causing her violent compulsions. And this girl was a similar experiment. When Carina realizes the vision was planted by her old colleague Mark, desperate for help to expose the company, she knows he’s probably dead. Her only hope is to unmask her nemesis – or she’s next.
To unlock the secrets Mark hid in her mind, she’ll need a group of specialist hackers. Dax is one of them, a doctor who can help Carina fight her addictions. If she holds on to her humanity, they might even have a future together. But first she must destroy her adversary – before it changes us and our society, forever.
Praise for FALSE HEARTS
“Riveting.” ―F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author
“A multilayered, suspenseful thriller, False Hearts explores themes of identity and power in a breakneck plot that keeps the pages turning.” ―Ilana C. Myer, author of Last Song Before Night
“An ingenious premise, and Laura Lam executes it flawlessly. Gritty and wise, your own pulse will be racing as you get caught up in this exciting tale.” ―Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues
“A taut futuristic thriller, set in a San Francisco where everybody is beautiful... and nobody is exceptional. Two unusual sisters are caught in a war for control of a society that quietly suffocates its outsiders, rebels, and the damaged. Taema and Tila are all three, and their strange past and unique bond make False Hearts a difficult book to put down.” ―A. M. Dellamonica, author of Child of a Hidden Sea
“A smart debut from someone who's clearly got what it takes.” ―Peter F. Hamilton, author of the Commonwealth Saga
EXCERPT
From
Shattered Minds / Laura Lam (Tor Books, 2017)
“All done,”
The
doctor
says, her eyes bright and unblinking. The girl’s
arm
burns
slightly. The world goes soft
and
fuzzy
around
the
edges.
The
doctor settles the girl
back in
the
Chair, lays
it down
flat.
She
fits restraints around the girl’s
arms and legs.
“Wh-what?”
the
girl asks, words slurred.
“Don’t worry. It’s
just
a partial sedative mixed with
Verve.”
Another sharp
smile.“ With a little
paralytic
thrown
in for
good measure.”
“V-Verve?”
the girl asks,
a thrum
of fear going through her.
Verve
is a drug the San
Francisco
mob,
the
Ratel, created; it
was all over
the
newsfeeds for weeks
last
year. It
was meant
to be
like
Zeal, but so much worse.
Not a dream you
woke
up from, your frustrations
spent cathartically.
Instead you woke
up hungry for violence
Pacifica
promised they’d destroyed it
. What will
it do
to her?
Her
limbs are
heavy. She
tries
to move a finger. Nothing.
Time fractures and
grows strange. The girl feels
a faint tick-ling
along her skull,
a strange release of
pressure.
“Look at the images again,”
the
doctor
instructs.
The girl’s eyes move
to the wallscreen, as
if she can’t
help
it. There is
the
bee, its segmented
eyes
staring at
her, its
pollen
dusting
the
blood-red petals
of the rose. Its
stinger is
as sharp
as the thorns
on the stem. Something
new appears—a
drop of
blood
drips
from one thorn,
slowly. Above
the
rose,
two
eyes
open. One is
blue,
one
is green. Heterochromic,
just
like hers.
There’s something
strange
about the images. As
if they’re
more than they appear.
As if she
could fall into
them.
“How do the images make you feel?” The images segment and flash
before her. A
bee. A rose . A
thorn. A drop
of blood.
Mismatched
eyes. Over
and over, until
they
blur together.
“I don’t
feel anything,” the girl
says. And
it’s true. All her emotions are just...gone. As
if they’ve
never existed.
“I see.”
The
doctor is
excited,
but
trying to
hide
it. The top of
the girl’s
head tickles
again.
She
looks
away from
the images, back
to her brain
scan.
It looks different. There are
darker
specks scattered through-out her brain,
moving around
like
busy
ants
.It takes her a moment to figure out
what
they
are.
“Nanobots,”the doctor answers
for her.“They’ll
help
the
code
settle
in quickly.”
“How...?” the girl
asks.
Then she realizes why
her
skull
itches.
All
her
pain
sensors
are
turned
off,
and
the
doctor
has opened
up her skull.
A piece rests
on the tray
next to
the
Chair. The girl
can just see
it out
of the corner of
her
eye.
The doctor holds
up the blood-slicked
bone.
“It’s a barbaric approach
these
days, to
actually open up
a subject like
this,
but
there’s no
risk
of infection. And there’s
something about seeing
the
brain right
there
before you
as the nanites
do their work.
It’s more...visceral.” The doctor
sets the bone aside.
“Don’t
worry, I’ll
put
it back
where it
belongs when we’re
done.”
The girl
should
feel fear,
but
there
is nothing. Nothing.
Until
there
is.
Then nanobots
converge in
her
brain,
digging
deeper,
down in to
the
very core of
her. The girl’s emotions
switch
on.
She
feels
everything—the pain in
her
skull, in
her
brain,
the
full
horror of
what’s
happening
to her.
She opens her mouth
and
screams. Alarms blare
and
beep in the room. She can
smell blood, thick
and
coppery, and the taste
hits the back of
her throat.
“You will
change the world, my girl,” the doctor says,
leaning over
her.
The world
blinks out.
My Review
Shattered Minds is an exquisite story that is dark, cruel, and full of drama. With new characters in the same futuristic world as False hearts, they must stop the progress of technology to save humanity from itself.
Carina has a brilliant mind. An ex-neuroscientist, she leaves her job when she no longer agrees with their experiments. Now, she is addicted to Zeal, plugged in to satisfy her dark desires. She is wasting away. She can hardly stand to be unplugged, until an old co-worker asks her for help in a way that she never thought possible.
Carina doesn't want to.
However she needs answers....to questions she will soon discover she didn't know she possessed.
This Sci-fi novel, the whole Pacifica series, is just wow....a crazy world...seems perfect on the surface, but deep down in the gut, its dark, cruel and heartless. I can visualize, with ease, the hover crafts flying around and the flawless appearance of society.
Carina is one of those characters you just don't understand, how someone who moved up the latter could fall so hard....until the flashbacks. You learn more about her as the story progresses, and then you completely get her. I loved all the characters in this story. Very strong personalities with diversity. One word...brilliant.
This story moves fast....full of anticipation and action that there is never a tedious moment....an eccentric world that is a thrill to lose yourself in.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Lam was born in the late eighties and raised near San Francisco, California, by two former Haight-Ashbury hippies. Both of them encouraged her to finger-paint to her heart’s desire, colour outside the lines, and consider the library a second home. This led to an overabundance of daydreams.
After studying literature and creative writing at university, she relocated to Scotland to be with her husband, a boy she met online when they were teenagers and he insulted her taste in books and she insulted his right back. She almost blocked him but is glad she didn’t. She is now a dual citizen, but at times she misses the sunshine.
While working a variety of jobs from filing and photocopying endlessly at a law firm to library assistant to corporate librarian, she began writing in earnest. Her first book, Pantomime, the first book in the Micah Grey series, was released in 2013, which was a Scottish Book Trust Teen Book of the Month, won the Bisexual Book Award, was listed a Top Ten Title for the American Library Association List, and was nominated for several other awards. Robin Hobb says “Pantomime by Laura Lam took me into a detailed and exotic world, peopled by characters that I’d love to be friends with . . . and some I’d never want to cross paths with.” The sequel, Shadowplay, followed in 2014, as well as several the Vestigial Tales, self-published short stories and novellas set in the same world. The third book in the series, Masquerade, will follow in 2017.
Her newest book is False Hearts, a near-future thriller released in
June 2016 by Tor/Macmillan and in three other languages. Peter F. Hamilton calls False Hearts “a strong debut from someone who’s clearly got what it takes.” Another thriller, Shattered Minds, will be released in 2017.
She is still hiding from sunshine in Scotland and writing more stories.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth May
--Giveaway is open to International. | Must be 13+ to Enter
- 3 Winners will receive both FALSE HEARTS and SHATTERED MINDS by Laura Lam
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