WIRED

Author: Liz Maverick ISBN: 0505527243 7/2007 ACTION Publisher: SHOMI

Seconds aren't like pennies. They can't be saved in a jar and spent later. Fate seeps throuoh cracks and shifts like fog. Pluck a second out of time or slip an extra one in, the consequences will change your life forever. Is the man you love really the man you think you know, or is there a version of your life in which he's your enemy? If you didn't know who or what you were before, would you take a chance on becoming that person again? L. Roxanne Zaborovsky is about to discover fate is comprised of an infinite number of wires, filaments that can be manipulated, and that she's not the one at the controls. From the roguishly charming Mason Merrick—a shadow from her increasingly tenebrous past—to the dangerously seductive Leonardo Kaysar, she's barely holding on. This isn't a game, and the pennies are rolling all over the floor. Roxy just has to figure out which are the ones worth picking up.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

WIRED is quite the cool read. It's the launch book for SHOMI, which is "a set of edgy romances packaged with anime/manga-inspired treatments." All this means you are in for a mind-bending, action adventure good time! Personally, I don't really enjoy manga, though I do pick it up from time to time and try it. At first this book was hard going for me, but after awhile, I figured out who the hero was going to be and roughly what was going to happen, and my romance-loving mind let me enjoy the ride from that point.

L. Roxanne Zaborovsky is a computer geek, friendless and familyless, who for some mysterious reason goes to a convenience store in the middle of the night. On her way there, two men appear and get into a heated fight. One of them she knows from college, the other is a James Bond-like stranger. The fight is a signal that her life is going to change because she's a Major, someone whose life is very important in time. Supposedly she's written some software that the men are fighting for. The problem is, she has no clue what the software is, or even if she's written it yet! The beginning is disconcerting, but keep going, because it all begins to clear.

In WIRED, Maverick has written a clever sci-fi romance with lots of action.

Heather Hiestand