This Mortal Coil
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Redefines ‘unputdownable.’” —Amie Kaufman, New York Times bestselling author of Illuminae
“I was thrilled. I was shocked.” —NPR
“Stunning twists and turns.” —BCCB (starred review)
In this gripping debut novel, seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father’s message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague.
Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.
That’s no surprise, since Cat’s father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own.
When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat’s instincts tell her it’s just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat’s help to release it and save the human race.
Now Cat must decide who she can trust: The soldier with secrets of his own? The father who made her promise to hide from Cartaxus at all costs? In a world where nature itself can be rewritten, how much can she even trust herself?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For two years, 17-year-old Catarina Agatta, a talented hacker, has survived on her own in the Black Hills: her scientist father, Lachlan, was taken by the powerful Cartaxus organization after the Hydra plague brought humanity to its knees. It's dangerous outside: mindless, cannibalistic humans called Lurkers roam, and those infected with the virus explode at the final stage of the disease, spreading it through the air. Only eating a victim's flesh provides temporary immunity ("This is the Hydra virus's cruelest side: It forces the healthy to eat the sick"). When Cole Franklin, a Cartaxus soldier, brings news that Lachlan is dead and Cat must decrypt a Hydra vaccine that he developed, she agrees to help. Suvada's scary, action-packed debut novel barely takes a breath, and its exploration of what makes us human goes well below the surface. Despite some familiar elements in the novel such as Cat's struggles with her father's motives, a love triangle, and her own identity Suvada's vibrantly imagined technology will spark readers' imaginations. A genuinely shocking twist sets up a planned sequel. Ages 14 up.
