this was an interesting read, I thought it was an interesting premise but it was still a little hard to understand. I hope there is more from the author.

Very weak

The idea that a new invention that does a lot of good turns out to have really bad side effects is the basis of most zombie and runaway disease stories. Here it is a machine that gathers free energy from the earth's atmosphere and converts it into electricity but that it starts grabbing the wrong kinds of energy, causing a plague. There is nothing wrong with reusing the invention gone wrong trope, but the book needs to be much better written than this one. There are so many holes in this story that it would be boring to list them. One of the biggest – or maybe littlest – is that somehow the Canadian tundra has no mosquitoes. Either the author forgot them or somehow all the scientists on earth did.

The cover of the book is so absolutely inappropriate it make me mad.

The writing pulls you into the book and keeps you reading, but there are too many questions left unanswered and only hinted at. Storm Freeman is supposed to be the main character, but Maria Kowalski steals the limelight from the moment she appears. And for two women who were at odds, their sudden dependence on each other doesn't quite mesh. Maybe this is the first book in a series?

The Gatherer is a science fiction thriller set in an imagined world where a precious power source is harvested and made available to the world at no cost. Unfortunately, it has unanticipated consequences. People are getting sick from exposure, the military has plans to weaponize the technology, and the inventor is in hiding running from those who blame her for these consequences. The premise of the story sounded interesting enough, but unfortunately the delivery was lacking. It was very difficult for me to keep track of what was going on as the chapters changed points of view and time periods. Parts of the story jumped around too much and pieces seemed to be missing. I had a very difficult time keeping up, making it hard for me to even finish the book.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I had a difficult time getting into this novel. While the writing was eloquent and detailed, I could not follow what was going on from the beginning. I felt like the author was speaking in riddles or there were parts to the story I missed. While it does explore multiple time lines, it felt a bit disjointed and abrupt. The world building was magical and fresh but I just wished the story had more fluidity.

This book was a nice surprise for me. I read the synopsis and thought to myself, "Well, that sounds like just about every dystopian young adult book I've ever read." But it wasn't and that surprised me a lot. I found the plot intriguing and the characters were crisp and refreshing. I didn't really mean to make them sound like apples, but there we are.
Really only to things got on my nerves and I hope they are rectified before publishing. 1. The plot moves back and forth in time quite a bit, and there is no indication in the text about when we're in a particular time period. I found it rather confusing with no idea what time period we were in until I had read a page or two. Even a "X year" at the beginning of the chapters from the past would help. 2. Sometimes the text seemed a bit disjointed. For example, I would read something and then all of a sudden they'd be talking about a dead body and I'm thinking "wait, when did someone die? what happened?" So I went back and read those passages again and still can't figure out what happened. This didn't occur a lot, but it happened a few times.

Storm was a good character, though I found her assumed helplessness a bit annoying sometimes. This book was the time for her to harness the power she still has and step forward into action. I saw that a little bit at the end, but it was quite literally only in the last 2 chapters. Prior to that she was a passenger to the plot and I wanted more from her.

Maria is a great character, a real kick butt strong woman with a purpose. The only drawback to her character is that I felt she was a vehicle to the next book. She seemed a little irrelevant to this particular plot but she was the method of getting our characters to the next book.

The plot moved at a good pace and the writing is exciting. I really enjoyed the journey this book took me on as a reader and I look forward to the revelations we get in the next book. I wish I could come up with more great things to say about this book, but anything else will spoil the plot and I endeavor to keep this review spoiler free. But it is a good, fun read that you should check out.