Kristi Helvig is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist turned sci-fi/fantasy author. You can find her musing about Star Trek, space monkeys, and other assorted topics at www.KristiHelvig.com. Kristi resides in sunny Colorado with her hubby, two kiddos, and their behaviorally-challenged dogs.
"In an unrecognizable future, the sun has ballooned to epic
proportions, leaving the Earth charred, desiccated and nearly
vacant, as a teenage girl tries to hold on to her sanity and
secrets.
Tora Reynolds, the daughter of a famous weapons developer, spends
her days isolated in an underground bunker with nothing to keep her
company but a cache of deadly weapons and the whir of machines that
purify her air and water. The Earth has become a monstrously
inhospitable place, with an angry sun that has shriveled the land
to dust and rendered it impossible for humans to venture outside
without a sunsuit for protection. When Tora is unexpectedly
approached by Markus, a friend of her father's with a disreputable
past, she is cast into a dangerous game in which Markus' group and
the oppressive Consulate vie for access to her deadly arsenal.
Through Markus, she meets James, a handsome and dangerous boy who
at any moment could as easily kiss her as kill her. Faced with the
responsibility of her father's legacy, she must decide how to save
the weapons and herself. Tora is whip-smart and sharp-tongued, and
though she possesses enough munitions to blow up a spaceship, her
sarcasm is by far her most useful tool. Helvig builds a rock-solid
future world and provides enough staggering plot twists and turns
to keep pages flying to the gut-wrenching cliffhanger.
A scorching series opener not to be missed." --Kirkus Reviews
--Journal
"It's 300 years after an asteroid hit the sun, throwing our planet
into the kind of heat that blisters skin after one minute of
exposure. Tora, 17, is the only one in her area left alive, and she
lives in a bunker, rationing recycled water and waiting until the
day it runs out. Then she is assaulted by a gang of roving
interstellar traders who want the stash of bioweapons Tora's dead
father created before being killed. When the lot of them are
besieged by Consulate ships, Tora and the renegades are forced to
form an uneasy alliance. Well, not that uneasy when it comes to
'scruffy' (that's your signal, readers) James. Helvig's debut is
not well served by the constant modern slang and the lust that
disrupts Tora's thoughts even during life-or-death situations. But
though the world building is foggy, there's a pugnacious grit and
scrappy energy to the prose, and the general theme--who, if any, of
these raiders can be trusted?--will keep readers on their toes
until the final pages." --Booklist--Journal
"This book contains all of the required elements of dystopian
literature: a futuristic, post-apocalyptic Earth, characters trying
to survive in extreme circumstances, romance that is complicated by
trust issues, and a variety of plot twists. Tora Reynolds is left
alone following a disaster in which an asteroid collision caused a
series of events that eventually led to the sun super-heating the
Earth. She is in charge of protecting the bio-energetic weapons
created by her scientist father. Tora teams with a band of
renegades to keep the weapons out of government hands. The plot
twists and turns are enough to keep the reader interested and
guessing, but the dystopian theme is familiar and somewhat
predictable. In spite of this, the title is a promising first book
in a new series and will leave the reader wanting to know what
happens next. Recommended." --Library Media Connection--Journal
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