Rebel Heart

Rebel Heart is set five hundred years in the future. The hero and heroine come from very different backgrounds. One is an Outsider and the other a City Dweller, but they are both dedicated scientists. Cameron Savage is a physician. Victoria DeMontville is a research scientist. They are both working to create a vaccine that will work against a deadly virus. Victoria has uncovered another way to help the victims of the virus, genetic surgery. During many of her forays into the musty archives of the city library, she discovers a technique that would give the City Dwellers a gene that would enhance an almost non-existent immune system. The technique is called allele transplant surgery.

Fiction, Science Fiction Romance
Reviewed by Jasmina Vallombrosa
TCM Reviews

After Nessa and Tori DeMontville are exiled for their childish disobedience, their father thinks that in time they will grow to understand the dangers of the outside world. While Nessa seems to be on the right course, Tori continues to live life as she wants to. On a chance outing she comes across the infuriatingly sexy Cameron Savage. While she thinks of him as a lowly Thieftaker, she can not stop her heart from beating faster than it has ever done before. Life only becomes more complicated for her as the evil Morray comes into her world in the pursuit for not only her hard-earned research, but also for her hand in marriage. In the midst of the chaos that ensures around her for the battle of her research lab, her path crosses that of the Phantom. As they team up to save their world as they know it, the sexual tensions between them create sparks and with Cameron Savage returning to be her husband, one can only wonder about the possibilities.
Filled with drama and suspense, this book will draw you into the mysteries of science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised by Ms. Young's storytelling talents as she wove not only a wonderful futuristic adventure, but also that of a passionate love story. I loved the main characters as they came to life on the pages. The plot was quite suspenseful and deliciously entertaining. As a result, I had no choice but to keep flipping the pages as I raced to the end. Bravo Ms.Young for such an extraordinary book from cover to cover!

Genre: Futuristic
© 2007 Euro-Reviews
Reviewer: Annie

In the late 26th century, humanity is confined to life inside sterile domed habitats. The repeated outbreaks of deadly viral plague have taken their toll, reducing overpopulation and resulting in a limited existence for the survivors. Only physicians are allowed to travel outside the perimeters of the domed cities. Twin daughters of a Councillor, Tori and Nessa deMontville are raised with love, but without freedom. On a day's visit outside the City to the lake, which their father had arranged, their lives are upended. The girls had gone to the lake without their father, as he had been called away on Council business.

Encountering their father and a band of thieftakers, who are governed by crime syndicates and make their own rules in the guise of capturing wanted criminals, Tori and Nessa are discovered. One of the criminals, Quentin Morray, demands they be punished severely for being outside the city without passes, even though they had a pass, which had been lost. To punish them, their father divides the twins and sends them away separately, while he hopes to repair the propaganda damage done to further the rift between barbarians outside the domes and the City Dwellers. In the process, deMontville must lend his vow to Cameron Savage, the Phantom, who prevented his slaying by an angered thieftaker. Years later, Tori has never forgotten her rage at the injustice of the thieftakers's system, and devotes her life to destroying it.

Rebel Heart is a well-written futuristic novel of a time that very possibly could come to pass, when viral plagues have laid the planet waste, and life is lived either in the sterile confines of domed habitats, or as pariahs in the outside wilderness. The world-building is excellent, vivid, and true-to-life. The characters will quickly catch and hold the reader's sympathies. The plot is quick, and takes time to examine many valid social, economic, class, and political issues as well. Christine Young delivers a winner which will capture the interest of futuristic/science fiction fans as well as the general reader.

The old lady closed her eyes and the breezes wafting through the trees overhead grew very still. She chanted softly. Despite himself, Cameron listened, astonished at what the woman could do with her voice, and completely enchanted by the rhythm of it.
"The flower is a lady, small, fragile, delicate, coaxed to grow by tender hands. Petals as white as virgin snow will bring health and life to the one who cultivates its beauty. Maturity will bring sweet laughter and the cadence of life to this woman as well as the planet. Together, minds set as one..."
Aisling stopped. Her eyes were opened now and were as wild as the wind swept mountains. She was staring at Cameron.
"What on earth? Fine, Aisling, come on spit it out," Cameron demanded. But her words had shaken him. They reminded him of a time and a place he’d tried hard to forget. Reminded him of a girl, no a woman now, but someone he’d learned long ago to avoid.
"I see pain," Aisling murmured.
"So do I," Cameron muttered. "Get on with it. Finish your story."
Aisling moaned. "I see agony, a horrible suffering anguish. Only the slightest fraction of hope is there, an opponent, offering help. It is not what she wants to do. She is innocent, but...but betraying you."
"Hell!" Cameron ground out irritably. "You’re talking nonsense. One minute you speak of a fragile white flower and the next it sounds like a lover’s betrayal. Pain and hope. That’s all there is any more. Aisling, it has been a long day..." But deep inside he knew her words could easily be true. After all, if he wasn't mistaken, she was speaking of Victoria DeMontville.
"She is the one that holds the flower, fragile, like a delicate porcelain doll, strong as her ancestors before her. He has located her, after all these years of banishment, for there is discord surrounding her; she creates it even as she breathes and her heart beats against her breast. She works passionately for the good of others. They’ll come for her, again and again, seeking more than her knowledge, more than her beauty, seeking fortune and name, and all material things."
"A rebel without purpose," Cameron muttered, tiring of her mad ravings, yet knowing full well whom she spoke of.
"But a rebel that could be nurtured into a blossoming flower with the proper care," Aisling prompted.
"Water and fertilizer?"
"You purposely jest."
"Aisling, I know that I must see Drake, and I do not intend to keep him waiting longer."