Olivia (Liv) Scott discovered she had a unique ability when she was a child. She was able to see echoes of past events that had happened in different locations that involved strong enough emotions to cause echoes of them to be remembered by the place where they happened. It was not always a pleasant thing to know, as many strong-emotion events are not happy ones, and many are violent and terrifying. And as she grew up, she managed to suppress that ability. However, when her brother is accused of a murder he didn’t commit, that ability is the only thing that might save his life. And, as it turns out, it also makes her one of the few people who might be able to stop a pandemic from killing off the human race.
I read a review copy of this book and enjoyed it. After having made it through the Covid Pandemic, I can see how easily such things can be spread. And as happens to be the case in this story, the illness being spread sometimes kills, but other times causes the survivors to become part of a “hive mind” controlled by a man who calls himself “The First.” He is attempting to create a new form of humans that will follow him as their leader by altering the natural bacteria the each person carries. The means for this is airborne, and spreads quickly from person to person.
The story felt very realistic given the deadly pandemic the world faced only a few years ago. And knowing that there will always be people who believe that they know what is best for everyone around them, makes this plot even more plausible. But for me, the ending of this one-shot story seemed to come a little too quickly and easily. Even knowing that very likely the length of time it took between the beginning of the story and the ending was likely compressed a bit to allow the author to end the story in only the one book, it still felt to me like the bacterial influence controlling everyone was a little too easily and too quickly defeated. (I will admit that I do feel that "The First" got off a little too easily at the end of the story, but you'll have to read the book if you're curious as to how or why I feel that way.)
That being said, I did enjoy the story a great deal. And I believe that anyone who enjoys reading thriller novels will enjoy this book. I also believe that anyone who enjoys any of the other books by Mr. Luzzatto will likely also enjoy reading this book. It really t was a captivating and well written story and one that I enjoyed reading all the way to the end.
Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.
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