Nova

By: Margaret Fortune

Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie

*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.

©2015 Margaret Fortune (P)2015 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A super start to what looks like a fine series; readers will be eager for the next installment." (Booklist)

"This is an excellent debut...creative and surprising." (RT Book Reviews)

"This book definitely scratched my kick-ass teen heroine itch, and it did it in space. That’s a perfect combo if I’ve seen one." (BookRiot)

It was good. Probably won't read the sequel.

The premise of this book is gripping. A ticking time bomb that malfunctions, giving said bomb just enough time to realize that they may not want to be a bomb? Perfect. The execution of the story is just a little slow. There's several scenes of, "There's nothing else to do, so I'll just sit here and wait for my boyfriend to come back. WHY DO I EXIST?? Oh look, my boyfriend is back."

In short, when the book is good, it's great. When it's not, it's a bit of a chore to get through. I had the audio set to 2x speed to help with that (and the narrator's struggle with male voices). Still, it's good enough that I'm comfortable telling whoever is reading this to give it a try.

A badly written, and read, fan-fiction

If you want the real story this seems to be stolen from, read Peter Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy. Also, the reader needs to seriously blow her damned nose!