TAKE HER BACK BOOK 1:
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEN EYES
“Bella is defective. You need to take her back.”
Nine-year-old Bella D’accourt has always known she was different; she was born into a controversial ‘designer baby’ eugenic programmme, difference is in her DNA. Bella has been designed to be exceptionally beautiful, but when she uses her sadistic, manipulative charm to seriously injure another child her mother brings her back to her creators and demand they “fix her”.
Thus begins Bella’s new life among scientists and other eugenic ‘Subjects’ at the mysterious Aspira Research Centre in Cumbria. But an enemy lurks in the shining laboratories set among idyllic mountains; an obsessive, murderous enemy who will, years later, drive Bella from all she has worked for and into a desperate, night-time flee across the country with her daughter, whom she will protect at all costs.
But Ariana, 12, isn’t so sure she wants to be protected by Bella anymore.
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Long-listed for The Peggy Chapman-Andrews First Novel Award as part of The Bridport Prize 2020
Part one of TAKE HER BACK trilogy
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Reader reviews:
'A superbly written and engaging book and a genre I would never normally read.'
'An absolutely intriguing story line that hooks the reader in from the first page. The characters are complex and interesting.'
'For fans of science fiction stories, I’m sure this will be a book to be sought after and enjoyed. The writing within it is sublime.'
'A solid speculative-fiction piece of work covering aspects of eugenics and genetic engineering and the ways they can be mishandled with tragic results.'
'The science fiction element is not obtrusive and is completely believable, while giving the story its sharp edge.'
'This is a spine tingling, thought provoking, exciting exploration of eugenics set against the backdrop of a Cumbrian research facility ... a superbly written and engaging book and a genre I would never normally read.'
'Couldn’t put it down. Gripping. The more I read, the more I was intrigued.'