Is this a YA novel? This is a YA novel, isn't it? I did not know this was a YA novel. I though Gagnon wrote fiction aimed at adults. No worries, this was a nice change of pace with teen characters in danger.
Orphan, and foster-system-runaway, Noa wakes up on a hospital bed but has no memory how she got there. She gets out of bed and discovers she is not in a hospital. Two men come in with, "Oh, you're awake." One leaves for help the other tries to stop Noa. Noa escapes with violence, speed and guile and finds herself outside in winter an among a warren of warehouses.
Meanwhile, rich kid Peter is at home feeling bad for himself. His parents are away for a marriage anniversary and his college girlfriend is busy. Peter starts messing with his attorney father's computer files. Peter is a hacker and when he finds something odd called Persefone so Peter starts pecking around. Soon enough big guys in black break into his house, take his computer, tell him to shut it, and that they know his parents. Oooh, spooky and scary.
Peter and Noa know each other from their online aliases. Peter started a socially conscious hacker group that exposes animal cruelty, child abuse, etc. After Noa's escape from the warehouse she gets back online and discovers a request for help from Peter. Peter's computer is gone and he is being watched so he cannot research Persefone. Peter offers payment to Noa and Newly-Noa-On-The-Street needs the dough.
Things happen. Noa is left with an odd scar from her abduction. Peter and Noa finds docs on the Persephone site showing medical experiments that seemed tied to an attempt to cure a wasting disease contracted by teenagers. The bad guys are part of a large conspiracy of wealthy people. They are able to cover things up and have the cash and people to move large labs. Peters parents are involved somehow but under the thumb of a mid-level bad guy.
The bad guys are very bad. They have been kidnapping street kids and experimenting on them, killing them, chopping up the bodies and disposing of them. Noa and Peter ultimately escape with Noa in the wind and Peter at home under his parents protection. Noa has escaped with another orphan and Peter anonymously receives an new AirBook from her to set-up the sequel.
Comments:
1. Nothing of note to say. It was a fun read. Budding romance between the emotionally walled off Noa and Peter. There are big socio-economic walls between them. Noa was orphaned as a 9-year-old and bounced around bad foster homes until she used her computer skills to create a fictitious ID and get work as an online IT security consultant.
2. Peter's parents are benevolent in their neglect. They give him cash and a house. A computer and public school. They've never gotten over the death of Peter's older brother. Mid-way through the novel they declare, during a time of stress, that the wrong son died.
3. Not a lot of computer talk but enough to keep things on track for non IT people like myself.
4. The third book in the series does not have an audio version available in the state ebook collection. I'll fix that.
