Hive, A Dystopian Time-Travel Thriller

The last survivors. The last chance. The last leap through time…
 
🌟 Finalist for the 2025 Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize
🌟 Rated 9.5/10 by Publishers Weekly's BookLife Prize in Fiction
 
For fans of The Murderbot Diaries, The Martian, and Dark Matter comes a fast-paced, emotional journey through love, loss, and redemption set in a future collapsing under its own weight.
 
Fifty years from now, the last humans hide beneath glass domes while swarms of microdrones tear at the last defenses of a drowning world. Inside Eden-17, a dying scientist and her lifelong love cling to hope—and each other—while a sarcastic, duct-taped AI named Madders keeps the biodome online.
But time is running out. Power is fading. Options are gone. They face one impossible choice: shut down everything—including Madders—to send one of them back in time, leaving the other behind to face the end. Alone.
Diego refuses to go. But Isabel knows what's coming. He has to do it. For her.
 
Thirty-five years earlier, Isabel's life is unraveling. Her marriage is over. Her future is empty. Then a stranger shows up with a haunted gaze and a warning she doesn't want to hear. He's not supposed to talk to her, but he knows what's coming. And what she does next will determine everything.
As the multiverse buckles under the weight of its own contradictions, a far-future Madders peers across timelines: at a physicist chasing the ghost of a time machine, a woman whose quiet choices could ignite revolution, and a man bound to her by love, grief, and time itself.
 
Rewrite the past without consequences? Go ahead. Try.
 
Lyrical and unflinching, Hive is the award-winning first book in the Madders in Time series—an emotional, character-driven sci-fi thriller where time travel isn't a gimmick but a reckoning. Follow the tenuous thread woven through fractured timelines, fragile hearts, and white-knuckle suspense. Step into a world where time is both the enemy and the only remaining chance.
 
Hope's a hell of a thing to weaponize—especially when it's all you have left.
 
Endorsements:
"Engrossing doomsday thriller spliced with heart, humor, and second chances."


~Publishers Weekly

"D.L. Orton writes vividly, bringing us right into the scenes."


~Independent Book Review

"Smart, imaginative, and strangely relatable—considering the quantum physics and parallel universes."


~Kirkus Reviews

"A haunting, high-stakes sci-fi tale that weaves love, time travel, and ecological collapse into a tense emotional thriller."


~New in Books

"A gripping blend of science fiction, post-apocalyptic survival, and time travel intrigue."


~Manhattan Book Review

"Characters that feel real. Emotions that hit hard."


~BookTribe

"A high-stakes, time-bending thrill ride with brains, heart, and a badass AI."


~Reader's Choice Award

"One of the best sci-fi books I've read in the last 10 years, and I read a lot."


~Ted Ollikkala, NetGalley

"Hive is a strong start to a unique series that mixes emotional stakes with high-concept sci-fi."


~Piper's Reviews, Goodreads

"Hive had me hooked right from the beginning. If I could give over 5 stars I absolutely would."


~Kelsey Rice, NetGalley

"A wild ride that was difficult to put down. [...] One thing is very clear, this book should be adapted for television."


~Lizz Taylor, NetGalley


"Not just about time travel—Hive is about hope, betrayal, corruption, greed, second chances, and confronting past mistakes."

~Makeda Cummings for Readers' Favorite