REVIEW: Obscura

Obscura
Author: Joe Hart

Dr, Gillian Ryan lost her husband to the disease, and now her daughter is battling it too. A strange disease that takes away a person's memories, leaving them in a confused, fugue state. Losian's is a lot like Alzheimer's, but it can strike anyone, young or old. Ryan is working hard to study the disease and hopes to find a cure. But the powers-that-be don't believe it's a concern and feel her research is taking too long, producing too few results. Ryan is notified that her funding has been cut. Just as she is reeling from the loss of her support funds, NASA approaches her, offering full permanent funding if she commits to a six-month mission to investigate some problems on the international space station. When it's too late to back out, she discovers that it's an entirely different, and much more dangerous mission. Someone has a secret. Someone doesn't want this investigation. And some secrets are worth killing for.

I loved this book! The plot and suspense kept my attention the entire time! There are many stories about mysterious diseases and dangerous missions in space, but this book didn't fall into old tropes. The story is creative, thrilling and suspenseful! It would be so difficult to be on a dangerous mission in space and to not know who, if anyone, you can trust. Gillian Ryan is a flawed, but very intelligent and driven main character. Several times I was so mad about how she was being manipulated, but it just made the suspense and creepiness of the plot that much stronger. The story definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. Every time I thought I knew what was going on and what would happen next, the story zinged off in a direction I didn't anticipate. Awesome!! Just brilliant!

I listened to the audiobook version of this story. The audio is just over 10.5 hours long. Christina Traister narrates. She reads at a nice even pace with good inflection. I have hearing loss but was easily able to hear and understand the entire book.

Joe Hart is the author of several suspense/thriller novels including Singularity and Cruel World. I'm definitely going to be reading more by Hart!

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**