SERIES: Project Nemesis, Book #1
AUTHOR: Brendan Reichs
NARRATORS: Kirby Heyborne, Emily Rankin, and Paul Boehmer
PUBLISHER: Listening Library
PUBLICATION DATE: March 21, 2017
FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook
LENGTH: 13 hrs and 10 mins
GENRE: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
Orphan Black meets Lord of the Flies in this riveting new thriller from the co-author of the Virals series.It’s been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown—alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he’s not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life. Everything changes in an eye blink.For the planet has a bigger problem. The Anvil, an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth, leaves little room for two troubled teens. Yet on her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough. She vows to discover what is happening in Fire Lake and uncovers a lifetime of lies: a vast conspiracy involving the sixty-four students of her sophomore class, one that may be even more sinister than the murders.
I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook for voluntary review consideration.
Teenage Melinda “Min” Wilder has a terrifying secret. Since her eighth birthday, Min has been killed by a man in a black suit on every even-year birthday. The method of murder changes, but she always wakes up in the same forest clearing with no evidence of having been harmed. When the police were called in after her first disappearance, she returned home with this wild story and no one believed her. I mean, come on! Who would believe a child saying she had been pushed off a cliff and died but woke up unharmed? When it happened again on her tenth birthday, she was referred to a psychiatrist (Dr. Lowell) who diagnosed her with a severe dissociative disorder and she had been prescribed an experimental drug which she can only get through him.
Min and her best friend, Tack, break into Dr. Lowell’s office so that she can read her file. What she finds is that there is a file on every classmate and that she is part of a top-secret government experiment run by the Department of Defense called Project Nemesis. She finds similar files in the principal’s office, and the experiment has been conducted for the past ten years with his knowledge. Min recalls an event from kindergarten, where there was a chemical spill and that each child had to be given a needle “for protection.” Min and another classmate, Noah, were also sent to a lab for additional treatment. When Min finds consent forms signed by their mothers and indications that they are being used as test patients, she realizes that Noah might also be suffering from the same bizarre birthday killings.
Simultaneously, there are strange natural occurrences going on worldwide. At first, Earth was almost decimated by a near-hit with an asteroid. Once the asteroid’s trajectory showed that Earth was in the clear, everyone heaved a great sigh of relief…that is until tsunamis started battering the west coast and earthquakes began. Then came the comets. Somehow, these natural events are tied to Project Nemesis and Min has to figure out what is going on and her role in it.
With such a unique premise with the birthday killings, I was immediately gripped by the dark story and conspiracy element. Initially, it is told from Min’s perspective but then Noah’s is added to the mix as well as Dr. Lowell’s session transcripts. I like Min, who is kind of an underdog. She lives in a trailer park with her mom, and her dad never stuck around so she never knew him. She’s a bit of a loner and social outcast, definitely not a part of the in-crowd. Tack is bullied by the jocks, and Min stands up for her friend. Noah is from one of the richest families in Fire Lake, but he has an absent father who is more interested in his revolving door of women than in being a dad. I felt a bit sorry for Noah, but he also ticked me off when he caved to peer pressure from his buddies. Tack is so funny and a real smart-aleck, and it was obvious how much he cared for Min.
Brendan Reichs is a new-to-me author, and I can’t wait to continue on with this series!
Emily Rankin was the narrator for Min, and there were also two male narrators: Kirby Heyborne and Paul Boehmer. I believe that Heyborne was the narrator for Noah and that Boehmer was the narrator for Dr. Lowell. I feel that having multiple narrators adds dimension to the characters and the story, so I really enjoyed all three of them! Both Rankin and Heyborne were convincing as teenagers. The last three hours of the audiobook were a thrilling ride, and I had a hard time taking out my earbuds! Here is a sample of the narration:
MY RATING:
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