Replica Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway

Replica (Replica #1)
Author: Jenna Black
Genre: YA Science Fiction/Dystopia
Release Date: July 16, 2013
Publisher: Tor Teen

Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Indiebound

Description:

Sixteen-year-old Nadia Lake comes from a high-class Executive family in the Corporate States. Her marriage has been arranged with the most powerful family in her state, which means she lives a life of privilege but also of public scrutiny, followed everywhere by photographers, every detail of her private life tabloid fodder. But her future is assured, as long as she can maintain her flawless public image — no easy feat when your betrothed is a notorious playboy.

Nathan Hayes is the heir of Paxco — controller of the former state of New York, and creator of human replication technology, science that every state and every country in the world would kill to have. Though Nadia and Nate aren’t in love, they’ve grown up close, and they (and the world) are happy enough with their match.

Until Nate turns up dead, and as far as everyone knows, Nadia was the last person to see him alive.

When the new Nate wakes up in the replication tanks, he knows he must have died, but with a memory that only reaches to his last memory backup, he doesn’t know what killed him. Together, Nadia and Nate must discover what really happened without revealing the secrets that those who run their world would kill to protect.

Nate awakened, gagging and choking, as a long plastic tube was removed from his throat. He tried to open his eyes, then quickly shut them again when something wet and sticky dripped into them. He wanted to wipe whatever it was away, but something was wrapped around each of his wrists, holding them down.

What the hell . . . ?

He struggled to free himself, but his limbs felt sluggish and weak, and he wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Take it easy, sir,” a male voice said, and then someone wiped Nate’s face with a steaming hot towel and he was able to open his eyes.

He was in a sterile white room, sitting in a coffin-shaped vat of slimy green goo. Tubes and wires connected the vat to a terminal in the wall. He blinked in confusion. The last thing he remembered was coming to the Fortress for his monthly backup. How had he gotten . . . ?

The thought trailed off in his mind as he realized what waking up in this tub of goo meant.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. His head spun, and he feared he was going to be sick. “I’m a Replica.”

He looked at the white-coated lab tech who had wiped the slime from his face, a forty-something Employee with brown eyes and discreetly graying hair. The lab tech gave him a single nod of confirmation, then continued unhooking Nate from the machinery that had created him.

If Paxco had gone to the enormous expense of creating a Replica, that meant the original Nate Hayes was dead.

“What’s the date?” Nate asked, holding back panic as his brain tried to process what was happening.

“March fourteenth, sir,” the lab tech said. “Now hold still so I can get you out of there.”

Nate closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his heart hammering. He’d gone in for his backup scan on March 1st. As a Replica, he had all of Nate’s memories up to the date of that backup, but anything that had happened between then and now was gone, erased by Nate’s . . . death.

“I’m dead,” Nate murmured under his breath, trying the words on for size.

“You’re very talkative—and very reluctant to hold still—for a dead man,” the tech said drily, and Nate forced his eyes open once again.

Jenna Black is your typical writer. Which means she's an "experience junkie." She got her BA in physical anthropology and French from Duke University.

Once upon a time, she dreamed she would be the next Jane Goodall, camping in the bush making fabulous discoveries about primate behavior. Then, during her senior year at Duke, she did some actual research in the field and made this shocking discovery: primates spend something like 80% of their time doing such exciting things as sleeping and eating.

Concluding that this discovery was her life's work in the field of primatology, she then moved on to such varied pastimes as grooming dogs and writing technical documentation. She writes paranormal romance for Tor and urban fantasy for Bantam Dell.

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