Audrey Auden

A riveting romance set in a post-apocalyptic world, where an order of women have set up an idealistic society where women live centuries-long lives and men labor to pay for past transgressions. This book provides an action-packed, yet thought-provoking, start to the Artifex and Muse series.

Ava has one last job to complete: steal some powerful pharmaka - or drugs - from the order of priestesses who control their world. It's supposed to pay for her and her mother's passage to the free lands. But when Ava has an accident with the pharmaka, she gets entangled - literally - with her childhood friend Dom. The pharmaka binds her to him, meaning they cannot be apart without physical pain. Hello, forced proximity romance! Her mother leaves her behind, and Ava finds herself swept into the order of priestesses she was trying to leave behind.

Dom is literally the sweetest. He looks out for Ava at every turn, even before his memories return and he remembers who she is. He's a character to root for, even as he struggles between what he's been taught about their world by the priestesses and the alternate perspective Ava brings.

The author introduces us to a fascinating new world. At times, this reminded me of Brave New World, especially with the sexual freedom and the characters - besides Ava - not knowing what a mother was. At first, this reads as dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction, but then a twist later in the book took this to a whole new level, and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series to find out more about that!

Thank you to the author for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (plus d'informations)

Wow. This book is just awesome! I haven’t really ready any cyberpunk before, only watched some cyberpunk anime. I don’t really see how this fits into cyberpunk in that sense, but as I haven’t read cyberpunk, I will take the author’s word that this is. Needless to say, whatever you want to call it, this book was amazing! I loved the world-building both within the book, and the work that the author does. The blending of technology and old religions was refreshingly thrilling. The author’s descriptions of technology were phenomenal. I was surprised that this book was only 356 pages, because it seemed so much more than that. The meaty details, the three different storylines going at the same time, and the delicious development of the plots left me feeling like I had read several books in the series.
The only bad thing that I would mention, is that because of all the different elements and the way that the story progressed, I really felt that there were two different books here. And the story still isn’t finished yet. There will be a sequel. This book took me a month to read, which is very uncommon. There are a couple of major climactic points where I think she could have ended book 1, and then created book two. The second part of the book had a very different feel than the first, which also would have been easier to handle if she had made it two books.

But it was a great read. I will definitely read it again when the next book comes out. Yeah, the next book is going on my TBR as well.… (plus d'informations)