The Renascent World by Carryn W. Kerr

★★★★

Engaging and enjoyable sci-fi adventure

When Cassidy Jones was five, she, her brother and their parents, along with a number of other carefully selected families, were chosen to populate Petriville, a city contained in a huge sphere in Earth’s orbit. Thus, they were saved from a meteor which struck Earth and destroyed most of the people remaining on the planet. For eleven years, Cassidy and her friends have lived happy, sheltered, privileged lives in the sphere, always with Earth looming in their sky as a visible reminder of where they came from and where they hope humanity may return one day.

However, the hermetic existence of the citizens of Petriville is about to be shattered forever. While helping her environmental scientist mother monitor Earth for signs of renascent life, sixteen-year-old Cassidy makes a monumental discovery which will change everything, both for her and her fellow survivors. Gradually awakening to powerful new-found emotions and the dark truth lying at the heart of the seemingly utopian perfection of her sealed world, Cassidy is set on course for conflict with Petriville’s totalitarian founder, Gina Petri, and a perilous journey back to Earth …

The author’s world-building is skilful and detailed, immersing the reader in an environment which, despite its on-the-surface idyllic setting, is established as unnervingly wrong from the get-go. Told from Cassidy’s POV, her discoveries deftly peel away layer after layer to reveal the terrible truth and purpose of Petriville. Eugenics, slavery, guilt, freedom of choice, and finding the courage to resist tyranny are brought to the fore in Cassidy’s journey of realisation and renascence, in which she will experience the joys of love and loyal friendship, the exhilaration of adventure, the terrors of torture, and, ultimately, the devastating grief of loss.

The central love story can feel a little over the top at times, but it rings true in that it is in keeping with Cassidy’s first experience of love as a teenager, with all the intensity and flowery language that entails. Her love interest is kept suitably enigmatic: we are never entirely sure whether he is genuinely the man of her dreams or will turn out to be someone else entirely. Their adversary, Gina, comes across as a chillingly effective combination of 1984’s Big Brother and Harry Potter’s Dolores Umbridge. Given her intelligence and the power she has accumulated as a woman in what has up to now been a predominantly male field, she is one of the most intriguing characters as well as the most horrifying. More on her backstory and motivation would have been interesting and added to her depth as a villain.

Well-plotted, evocatively descriptive, at times humorous and at times shocking, The Renascent World ends both on an upbeat note and with a sinister hint of things that may yet be to come. A recommended read for fans of romance, sci-fi and adventure.

Jo-Anne Blanco (as Arwen Evenstar) for Breakaway Reviewers
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

©Jo-Anne Blanco 2020