by Joe Hart
Sometime in the near future, Dr. Gillian Ryan has lost the funding for her leading-edge research into a mysterious, spreading disease: Losian’s.
Like Alzheimer’s, Losian’s is a neurological disorder marked by memory loss, trance-like fugue states and eventually violent rages and death. Unlike Alzheimer’s, Losian’s can affect anyone at any age.
Gillian, a neurological radiologist, lost her husband Kent to the disorder and now her young daughter Carrie has it.
Without funding, not only does her life’s work come to an end, but so do her hopes for finding a cure to save Carrie. Then, an unthinkable opportunity presents itself.
Gillian’s one-time college boyfriend, Carson LeCroix, a high ranking NASA astronaut, pays her a visit and makes a proposal: if she will join a six-month NASA mission in space, he will assure that her research gets permanent funding.
The mission? To figure out why astronauts on a space station, involved in a critically important project, are starting to develop symptoms of Losian’s. Although this means leaving Carrie behind for six months, it’s her only option for continuing to develop a cure — or at least treatment — for Carrie’s condition.
Soon after leaving earth’s atmosphere, Gillian discovers that almost nothing about her mission is what it appears to be. Worse, it’s impossible to tell who she can trust anymore — including herself.
This is a suspenseful story that is part science fiction, part psychological thriller and part medical mystery. Author Joe Hart builds a credible world in outer space while planting multiple seeds of doubt about the compelling characters and the conditions they exist in. He masterfully creates complex characters drawn in a lean, clear writing style.
This definitely not a book you’ll want to put down. It ends in a state of tarnished hope.
The Author: Joe Hart
Joe Hart was born and raised in northern Minnesota, where he still lives. He’s been writing horror and thriller fiction since he was nine years old.
Hart is the author of the Dominion Trilogy, the Liam Dempsey mysteries and six (as of May 2018) stand-alone novels, two novellas, a short story collection (Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror) as well as short stories and a comic, “The Last Sacrifice.”
You can learn more about him and his work at his blog.
