Monday, October 11, 2010

Regression by Kathy Bell

Regression Blurb:
Fourteen-year-old Adya Jordan swears that before her head injury she was a forty-year-old mother of six. Is she going crazy, or did she really live through an entirely different life? 1985 is nothing like she remembers, although her first day of high school certainly is! A typical girl with atypical genes, Adya tries to recapture her old life, hiding her growing conviction that she has done this before. Memories of the man she loved and a family she adored haunt her, even though her future husband doesn't even know she exists. Accidentally discovering the secretive Three Eleven Corporation might know more about her situation than she does, she is convinced the twenty-eight men heading up the company are responsible for the changes in her world. Adya finds her way into their ranks, journeying to the tropical island headquarters to begin an orientation into their prestigious internship program. The Three Eleven Company controls the development and distribution of Twenty-first Century technology brought with them from the future. Charged with the task of preparing the world for an impending disaster, each member of the team uses his scientific background to create a solution for a problem the planet does not know it is facing. They don't have time to deal with a feisty young girl poking around. Banished to the frozen Canadian Shield for asking too many questions of CEO Abraham Fairfield, Adya finds the men in the underground city of Sanctum are interested in more than just her genes as they search for the answer to her presence in the timeline. In the end, Adya encounters a choice no mother should ever face: save her children...or everyone else.

Regression Buy Link

My Thoughts:

I don't typically read or watch Sci-Fi. It just isn't my passion. I was approached by Tracey with the offer to review Regression and thought Hey Why not. I was intrigued by the blurb that was sent to me and thought that if nothing else I would have an interesting time reading.  I was not instantly drawn in to the book. It kind of started off slow, but I knew something exciting was going to happen, maybe I shouldn't say exciting so much as unusual in my reading life.

Adya is a forty year mother of six. Regression opens up on a normal day. The family has just left a memorial and are headed to Grandma's. Adya realizes that she has forgotten presents and must go back, leaving all but one of her children with her mother. There are not many details as to what happens but you know that she has been in a car accident. Upon waking up she finds that she is fourteen years old and in the year 1985. She has very strong memories of a full life filled with love and happiness and a family that she could not have dreamed up. The doctor informs her that she has been in a coma for a week and that the brain can do funny things when traumatized.

With no other option but to accept that she is a fourteen year girl again Adya tries to blend in and behave like a normal teenager would without letting it slip that she has already lived this life, or one very similar to it, once. She is faced with confusion about her "new" world, seeing things in this 1985 that didn't appear until the 21 century.  I was actually thrown for a loop and thinking that this is just ridiculous when Adya walks into school and finds that everyone has a computer at their desk, and not the Commodore 64 that was first introduced to me when I was a child. These were top of the line laptops. Of course the author did a wonderful job explaining all of this later on, and Adya did make reference to the changes she was seeing. It is in this classroom that Adya finds out about the company Three Eleven. After answering a question posed to the new users of the program Adya is invited to tour the company as an intern.

At Three Eleven Adya learns that she is not the only Regresse, the term used to identify those that have come back in time to their younger selves with full knowledge of their previous life. The only thing that these regresses do not know is what catastrophe takes place in 2011. Adya spends several weeks learning about the 28 men that run Three Eleven and their projects being worked on in the different departments to try and divert the unknown catastrophe.

I was a little confused to the time line at times and there is a lot of scientific information included that did throw me for a loop. But I really enjoyed what I was reading. The plot is well developed and very interesting. At times I felt like there was way too much information given, but that could be a normal thing for a Sci-Fi novel dealing with so many different concepts. Overall I enjoyed Regression and look forward to reading Evolussion, the second installment in this trilogy.

4 comments:

Kathy Bell said...

Hello Heather,

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing Regression. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the story even though it was not of your normal genre and really does not have any romance in it! SciFi readers generally devour the technical stuff with gusto, but other readers usually take it or leave it.

Evolussion continues on with the same characters twenty-six years later, being told from multiple points of view. I hope you enjoy it as well. The sequel, Revolussion, will be released on 11/11/11, of course!

Happy Fall reading!

Kathy Bell

Heather D said...

How appropriate!! I love that you are able to get it released on 11/11/11!!! Thank you for the opportunity to broaden my horizons. I will definitely be reading the following two books.

I am sorry that I wasn't able to put your book cover in the post, for some reason the picture load.

Kathy said...

As a teacher, I love to get students open to trying new experiences;) The second story does have quite a bit of science fiction as well, but even my non-sci fi fans have enjoyed it.

Here is the cover image link, I don't know if you can just link directly to the Amazon listing at http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FdvR1IDbL.jpg

Lea said...

Nice review Heather! Glad you enjoyed Regression, it does sound like an interesting novel!

Thanks for sharing with us!!

((hugs))

 
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