FALSE HEARTS

Set in a futuristic world, but one very like our own, we follow two twins, Taema and Tila.Taema and Tila grew up in Mana’s Hearth, a closed cult which refused to use any technology, set in the redwood forest just across the bay from San Francisco. They were born conjoined at the chest, sharing a heart that began to fail when they were 16. After they escaped, they were separated and each given a mechanical heart.

Ten years later, Tila comes home to the twins’ shared home in San Francisco, frightened and babbling, just before the Police come, arrest her for murder, and take her away. This is the first homicide by a civilian in years: people with violent tendencies can instead take the drug Zeal, that lets one act out one’s most depraved and violent fantasies in a dreamscape. Taema is given a proposition: go undercover as her sister and perhaps save her twin’s life. For SFPD believes that Tila is involved with the Ratel, an undercover crime syndicate that is only growing more powerful, and that the man she might have killed was a hit man for them. If Taema can help Detective Nazarin with the investigation, then they’ll let her sister go, even if she did commit the murder. Taema must go deep into the underbelly of San Francisco in order to save her twin and discover how the past she thought she left behind has come to her present. Once unable to keep anything from each other, the twins will discover the true cost of secrets.

Laura Lam has had two teen fantasy novels published, and has just been shortlisted for best newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards. Her writing has attracted widespread praise from Kirkus, BFS and Robin Hobb, amongst others. However FALSE HEARTS, is a decidedly adult, futuristic thriller, it is a new and very exciting direction for her.

The world she is building here is light and believable; creating a very real, very tangible futuristic world, and characters whose concerns are not far removed from our own. The Book is filmic, incredibly well-paced, and full of twists and turns. Taema and Tila are flawed, vulnerable, and fascinating characters, and their growth through the novel is handled masterfully.