Title: Shattered Minds

Author: Laura Lam

From the back: 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.

The gist: Fancy hanging out with a heroine who’s got a tendency to wish you dead, and teaming up with some underground hackers to save the world from having their brains taken over by a greedy corporation?

Thought so! And my first foray into Laura Lam’s books certainly delivers you that.

It’s an action packed ride that rushes you through a not-too-distant land of super-enhanced biotechnology and floating fortresses for the rich. Drugs keep crime in check (to the point of allowing people with potentially violent tendencies to become addicted to the drug ‘zeal’ and slowly wasting away) and the ever increasing reliance on media and interconnected devices means brain hacking is basically a reality.

Lam whisks you through at break-neck speed, pausing every now and then to let us get to know Carina, our disturbed heroine, through forays into her memories.

There’s a nice balance to the action between political and personal motivations, and the scenery (both landscape and people) along the way are all sorts of fun.

And it’s certainly fun… dark, with murderous tendencies, but damn fun. And not only is it fun, but there’s another book set in the same future already out – False Hearts. So I get through one book on my reading list, and another one immediately raises its head.

Favourite Line: It would be the last line, and that would be spoilericious.

Read if: You like a dose of darkness with your futuristic-political-action.

Read with: Half an eye on all those screens and networks you’re attached to.

Get it: Shattered Minds by Laura Lam

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.