A mysterious message scratched onto the skeleton of a long dead whale begins a process that makes Cyan question everything. Cyan lives at the Elsewhere Sanctuary, a strange complex in the middle of sand dunes, scattered with the decaying hulks of old ships. Like the hundreds of other young people there, his past contains an event so traumatising that he has blocked it out, and with it all memories of his old life, down to his name. The staff at the Sanctuary tell him it’s for his own good but new arrival Jonquil questions this and so it seems did the person who scratched that message on the bone. When Jonquil disappears, Cyan decides he must find out the truth. His efforts lead to the kind of subterfuge, not to mention the high speed chases, that are familiar to James Bond, but the atmosphere is as creepy as it is tense as Cyan realises those he has always trusted most are his enemies. A gripping, unsettling sci-fi thriller that feels very topical.
Cyan has lived at the Elsewhere Sanctuary for as long as he can remember, freed by Dr Haven from dark memories of his past life. But when Cyan finds a mysterious warning carved into the bones of a whale skeleton, he starts to wonder what he had to forget to be so happy. New resident, Jonquil, begins to resist the sanctuary's treatment, preferring to hold on to her memories - even the bad ones. So when Dr Haven resorts to harsher measures, Cyan embarks on a secret mission to discover the truth about the sanctuary...and himself.
Gripped me from the very first page - vivid storytelling, wonderful world-building and characters you'll think about long after the end - Jasbinder Bilan
Author
About Darren Simpson
Darren Simpson lives in Nottingham with his wife and two mischievous boys, and spends most of his time pretending he knows what he's doing. After not quite making it as a drummer in a rock band, Darren turned to writing and discovered that it's a fun way not only to escape reality, but also to explore and confront it in unusual ways. He can usually be found lost in his headphones or eating cake mix with a spoon.
