This Mortal Coil, by Emily Suvada
To say I’m not the biggest fan of the YA (Young Adult) genre would be a fairly accurate statement. In YA books, I find the romance quite often overwhelms the actual plot, and the personalities of the characters seem to be based entirely around their relationships.
I realised a while back that this genre was just not for me.
That being said, I recently discovered a YA book that wasn’t quite like the rest.
Without further ado, let me introduce you to ‘This Mortal Coil’.
Set in a world plagued by a lethal airborne virus, commonly known as Hydra, the plot centres around Catarina “Cat” Agatta. A series of flashbacks show that Cat was the daughter of Lachlan Agatta, the designer of the Influenza X vaccine and one of the world's best geneticists and foremost authorities on DNA. In a world where people are born with inbuilt panels, which they subsequently use to hack their genes, Lachlan’s knowledge was an invaluable resource. After the outbreak of Hydra, he had been kidnapped by Cartaxus, the government organization that had sprung up after the start of the worldwide pandemic. Cartaxus hoped that he would be able to recreate his previous work and come up with a vaccine against the Hydra virus before everyone was dead.
As her father and best friend were dragged away by the Cartaxus forces, Cat managed to evade capture by hiding in the panic room of the house.
That was more than two years ago.
