Author(s): Eileen Merriman

NZ Teen Fiction | 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

Set in the near future, this first book in a fast-paced trilogy will hook you in from the first page.

Violet Black and Ethan Wright are both in a coma after contracting the lethal M-fever. They have never met.

- I couldn't speak, but I was trying so hard to communicate and then . . . then . . . I pushed. And something, someone, pushed back. Her name is Violet. Violet, but she is sunshine-yellow, and I need to find her because I think she might be just like me.

But there is a far more serious reason for Ethan to find Violet- the sinister Foundation is trying to hunt them down. 

Kathleen's review - There was a measles epidemic back in the 2010s, and now, some years later, a new even-more-lethal strain of measles is killing kids. There's no viable vaccine yet (and there  are the vociferous arguments from the anti-vaccers), but Violet and Ethan survive the encephalitis that the measles led into. Their brains, however, have been altered!

I really enjoyed the characters and the pace of this book - great questions about loyalty and control, and great development of the teens' mind-powers.