Book picks similar to
Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets by Jeffrey Cook
sci-fi
speculative-fiction
ya
cyberpunk
The Erasure Initiative
Lili Wilkinson - 2020
The murmur of voices. The smell of air freshener. The cool vibration of glass against my forehead.A girl wakes up on a self-driving bus. She has no memory of how she got there or who she is. Her nametag reads CECILY. The six other people on the bus are just like her: no memories, only nametags. There's a screen on each seatback that gives them instructions. A series of tests begin, with simulations projected onto the front window of the bus. The passengers must each choose an outcome; majority wins. But as the testing progresses, deadly secrets are revealed, and the stakes get higher and higher. Soon Cecily is no longer just fighting for her freedom - she's fighting for her life.
Don't Turn Around
Michelle Gagnon - 2012
Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her hacking skills to stay anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in a warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side.Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa’s talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation threatens his life in no uncertain terms. But what Noa and Peter don’t realize is that Noa holds the key to a terrible secret, and there are those who’d stop at nothing to silence her for good.
TAT
Razz Popo - 2017
Who hasn't? Well, I was right there when the spaceships crashed. I saw the lasers, felt the heat of the explosions and the clumps of dirt spank my face. And I saw the aliens. Then came the orb and the tats, and with them, the powers. For a few days afterward, I was on cloud 99. And then it all went downhill. First, I was fighting for the lives of strangers. Then I was fighting for my own. Now, I'm fighting for all of the above, and the lives of everyone I love. TAT is a novel for lovers of aliens, super-powers, and more action than is safe for a non-augmented human. Think you know pretty much what's inside? You don't. Think you can predict what's going to happen? You can't. Think you will be bored? You won't.
Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead
Steve Pugh - 2009
Most of the "Blue Lights" are harmless, witless drones, as lost in death as they were in life. Some want revenge. Some want power. Some even want company to join them in the ranks of the departed. Enter Alice Hotwire, Detective Exorcist. She's the best there is at keeping the peace on the Blue Light beat, and her fellow officers hate her for it. It's a job she doesn't want, in a world she doesn't understand - but when a break-in at the Maximum Security Necropolis sets off a surge of violent, brutal hauntings, Alice Hotwire knows she's the only one that can pull the city from the brink of chaos.
Lock In
John Scalzi - 2014
Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what's now known as "Haden's syndrome," rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an "integrator" - someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.But "complicated" doesn't begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery - and the real crime - is bigger than anyone could have imagined. The world of the locked in is changing, and with the change comes opportunities that the ambitious will seize at any cost. The investigation that began as a murder case takes Shane and Vann from the halls of corporate power to the virtual spaces of the locked in, and to the very heart of an emerging, surprising new human culture. It's nothing you could have expected.
Our Lady of the Ice
Cassandra Rose Clarke - 2015
The southernmost city in the world, with only a glass dome and a faltering infrastructure to protect its citizens from the freezing, ceaseless winds of the Antarctic wilderness. Within this bell jar four people–some human, some not–will shape the future of the city forever:Eliana Gomez, a female PI looking for a way to the mainland.Diego Amitrano, the right-hand man to the gangster who controls the city’s food come winter.Marianella Luna, an aristocrat with a dangerous secret.Sofia, an android who has begun to evolve.But the city is evolving too, and in the heart of the perilous Antarctic winter, factions will clash, dreams will shatter, and that frozen metropolis just might boil over…
Everly Gray: The Adventures Boxed Set
L.J. Charles - 2013
Gone
Christine Kersey - 2013
Not only is her family missing, but another family is living in her house and claims to have lived there for weeks. As Morgan desperately works to figure out what has happened, she finds society has become obsessed with weight in a way she has never seen before. The more she searches for answers, the more she begins to wonder if she has somehow ended up in another world—a world she doesn't want to be a part of. Can she survive in this world until she can get home?Gone does not contain any profanity or sexual content and is appropriate for all ages.
Bluescreen
Dan Wells - 2016
One of those connections is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it.Marisa Carneseca is one of those people. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net—going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it’s Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen—a virtual drug that plugs right into a person’s djinni and delivers a massive, non-chemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and Mari and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that is much bigger than they ever suspected.
Proximity: If the police always know where I am... How do I kill you?
Jem Tugwell - 2019
Is this where we're heading?’ Abi Silver Leading the trend in speculative crime thrillers, Jem Tugwell’s thrilling and thought-provoking debut sits alongside Black Mirror and The City and the City in a compelling exploration of our near future. Proximity draws on Jem’s 20 years of professional experience as a software developer in the city to give an unnerving insight into how our world might be transformed by the rapid advance in embedded technology and fitness trackers. What if the cash-strapped NHS can be given a second life by using tech to regulate our health and behaviour? What if we can eradicate knife and other proximity crimes by tracking everyone’s activity? What if civil liberty is seen as an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good? What if the convenience of technology is used for control? “Proximity is inspired by the fascinating possibilities of technology, AI and the law of unintended consequences. From my own experience, technologists are often amazed or horrified about the other uses that people imagine for their products. Clive and Zoe’s world might be closer than we think, but is it heaven or hell? How do we decide the perfect balance of free will and greater good?” – Jem Tugwell DI Clive Lussac has forgotten how to do his job. Ten years of embedded technology – ‘iMe’ – has led to complete control and the eradication of crime. Then the impossible happens. A body is found, and the killer is untraceable. With new partner Zoe Jordan, Clive must re-sharpen his detective skills and find the killer without technology, before time runs out for the next victim…
Above
Isla Morley - 2014
At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in—the crushing loneliness, the terrifying madness of a captor who believes he is saving her from the end of the world, and the persistent temptation to give up. But nothing prepares Blythe for the burden of raising a child in confinement. Determined to give the boy everything she has lost, she pushes aside the truth about a world he may never see for a myth that just might give meaning to their lives below ground. Years later, their lives are ambushed by an event at once promising and devastating. As Blythe’s dream of going home hangs in the balance, she faces the ultimate choice—between survival and freedom.
The Ark
Patrick S. Tomlinson - 2015
Bryan Benson is the Ark's greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can't be beat.But when a crewmember goes missing, Bryan is thrust into the centre of an ever-expanding web of deception, secrets, and violence that overturns everything he knows about living on the Ark and threatens everyone aboard.
Detective Maddie Ives #1–4
Charlie Gallagher - 2022
The killer is careful to position her under a camera that links to his smartphone. He likes to look back at his work. He is watching her. But she isn’t dead. So he will return to finish the job. Detective Maddie Ives and DI Harry Blaker must work fast. Time is running out for the woman in the container. And the killer has already identified his next target.BOOK 2: HE WILL KILL YOUGrace Hughes is kicked to the bathroom floor by her partner. Fighting to regain her breath, she can no longer ignore a simple truth: she must leave or he will kill her. Grace has a plan to get free. And Detective Sergeant Maddie Ives is going to help her. But Maddie has a lot on her mind. A dead boy in a bath, a car bomber who wants to make a statement, and the return of a scarred DI Harry Blaker. Can he and Maddie stop the bomber, find a killer and save Grace — whether she helps herself or not?BOOK 3: HE WILL FIND YOUA ten-year-old-boy steps out in front of traffic. He is dazed, confused and barefoot. He is covered in blood. It’s not his. Detective Maddie Ives is called out and finds the boy backed up against a shop front. He’s ready to run again. He can’t tell her why. Then a man is found brutally murdered and Maddie and Detective Harry Blaker are determined to find out who is pulling the strings. If they don’t stop him, he will find more victims. And the evil will come close to home.BOOK 4: HE KNOWS YOUR SECRETSHolly Maguire takes a taxi to a clifftop location and the car goes over the edge of the cliff. As Holly falls to her death, she tightens her grip on a rucksack. She will give her life to bring him down. Kelly Dale receives a text from Holly, sent just before the accident, and rushes to the clifftop. She is too late. Detective Maddie Ives must stop a powerful man who exploits and controls women before it’s too late.
Rampant Destruction (Cerberus #10)
Andy Peloquin - 2021
The Protection Bureau’s day of reckoning has come!Armed with the proof that Agent Styver betrayed him and locked him in the Vault, Nolan is determined to sever ties with the Protection Bureau once and for all.If only it was that simple or easy…Even with a small army of fellow Silverguards and a newly upgraded Taia, he’s taking on the most powerful secret government organization in the Nyzarian Empire, one that possesses unlimited resources and technology beyond anything he’s encountered or defeated.The battle is already fierce, but things will get really ugly when the Protection Bureau decides to threaten everything and everyone Nolan loves.
Don't miss Book 10 in the explosive Cerberus Series!
A Celestial Affair (Trengillion Cornish Mystery Series Book 6)
Daphne Neville - 2016
Twelve years have passed since Trengillion was covered in a deep blanket of snow and since then much has changed. Ned Stanley, the village school's headmaster, has retired and the inn is, yet again, under new ownership. Throughout Cornwall, businesses are making final preparations for the half a million extra tourists predicted to visit the county in August for the much hyped solar eclipse. An event which, unbeknown to the residents of the peaceful fishing village, will bring in its wake far more than a large influx of holiday makers. A Celestial Affair is the sixth book in a series of seven set in Cornwall on the beautiful Lizard Peninsula. The books cover a timespan of sixty years.