This one made me uneasy. Reading a book in a future of a pandemic while you are in a pandemic is NOT a good idea 😅 But, I kept reading and glad I did. I kept making comparisons with what is going on in my province... The Key is like our government right now: Saying a truth, but not all the truth... And some people, like me, are paying for it. Ok, we're not dead, but we're sick because of it.

Still, all the tech exposed in the book is fascinating. The world building is realistic in a frightening way. It could really be our reality in 50 years, post-COVID. I really hope it won't be...

I can't wait to see what adventures Elodie and Aiden will live in the next book!

Many thanks to Blackstone Publishing for the complimentary e-copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Key to Fear is a chilling read that is particularly relevant to society today, as we have been plagued by a global pandemic. Despite the fact that her characters can't touch, Cast does a wonderful job evoking emotion, making the reader truly care for the characters and their situation. I highly recommend this one!

Nope. This book just isn't it. The books by the Cast women are always hit or miss with me and sadly this one was a miss. No kissing, hugging, touching. I mean, this book had great potential but the writing just disconnected me from the story for some reason.

This was a very timely book, considering the subject matter and everything that’s been going on in the world. Maybe a little too timely, as I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as I could have. Apparently the beginning to a new series, this book throws a lot of information at you very quickly, but it’s not the most organized plot to follow. The world building and characters were good, but could have been better, IMO. I’m a little outside my reading comfort zone with this one, but was still interested enough to read it all the way through. Just might pick up the next one too!

Thank you, NetGalley, Kristin Cast, and Blackstone Publishing for letting me receive this ARC for an honest review. All opinions are my own. #BookAllies

The Key To Fear by Kristin Cast really hit hard due to the climate we are currently struggling in with the pandemic. However, this book had decent pacing and an action-packed storyline (could have even had more in certain spots). I enjoyed getting to hear from both characters Elodie and Aiden as they navigated this post-pandemic life in a caregiving facility. Going between the two and a few supporting characters kept me invested and made it easy to understand who they were. Dystopian novels are always a bit twisted and I've always enjoyed that mystery survival piece to them. This one does that - so I can't wait for the second installment! Cast is always one of my favorite YA writers - check it out!

This is the first Kristin Cast book I have read outside of the House of Night series. And I love that series - SO MUCH! So this book had some high expectations to meet simply because of how invested I was there. Not sure if that's a fair pre-judgment, but it is what it is! I am happy to say, however, this book is SO good and definitely met/exceeded my hopes! I am so excited there will be more in this series, too. Cast just knows how to write a super-engaging plot and a story that will totally consume you! I found the plot unique and fun! 3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 for rating purposes.

I really enjoyed this story. It may have been a little more "real" than intended because of the current social climate, but it was still interesting. It did give me similar vibes as The Giver with the rebuilt society and the opinion on relationships and physical attraction. It's an interesting concept.

While I enjoyed this novel, I felt that there was a lot of information thrown out a bit into nowhere. If the storyline had been a touch more organized, it might have worked out better. The pacing was fine, with action peppered throughout, although some sections suffered for it - information seemed to be added on as an afterthought in favour of more action.

I would say that for me this was a low end 3 and a half stars. That being said, I'm invested enough to want to know what happens in the next book, so I will definitely be reading the next installment.

Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing a copy of this e-book for review.

can we take a minute to appreciate how absolutely stunning the cover is? Like damn, who is she?! I’ve said this before and I will say it again – the cover always makes such a big impact and normally can be the difference between me choosing to read the book or not. That’s awful to admit, but it’s true. I wanted to read the book at first because the cover was pretty. The synopsis had me hooked, I won’t lie – but the cover …

Pacing of the book was definitely not the strongest area of the book. Several times I found myself considering whether it was time to shelve the read. Yes, I’m glad I persevered but I also feel like I could have maybe saved myself a few hours by stopped when I had originally wanted to. I don’t feel like many of my questions were answered, especially with the cliff-hanger introduced at the end of the book. I did however, enjoy the switching of positions. To have read the entire book for Elodie’s point of view would have been sudden death – so the fact we get chapters focussed around Elodie and Aiden and Blair and even secondary characters was quite enjoyable. It broke up the story and helped to ease out parts which felt like they were dragging on a little. There are definitely parts I wish will be expanded on further into the series, because to brush over them now would be a disgrace.

I think to give The Key to Fear a rating lower than a three would be extremely harsh because essentially, I’m easing myself into a genre which I don’t normally have much time for. Though I appreciated the book for what it was, I definitely felt like it could have been a little better. I’m still undecided as to whether I will read the second instalment whenever that is published, but I will be monitoring updates to make my decision a little easier when the time comes. I can admit that for the most part, the book was okay. I was interested in reaching the conclusion or I would have stopped reading after page seventy-five. At the same time, I don’t think there is a word better than ‘okay’ to describe the story – and so I’m pretty limited in what else to say. Of course, the only way to decide for yourself is to give the book a go!

The Key to Fear
3.5/5 ⭐️ to The Key to Fear by Kristin Cast

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for an egalley copy to review!

Wow, I don’t know if there is a more fitting YA dystopian to come out in 2020. This follows a pair of teens (Elodie and Aidan, our alternating narrative perspectives) who work at the same hospital-type place. And in their world, a serious pandemic (see!?!? 2020) wiped out much of their city, and now life looks a lot different.

I settled into the story with these characters pretty quickly! I found it quite interesting how this society now functions post-pandemic. For example, people who are in the end stages of this disease are kept in a combination long term care unit/mortuary. Also, there are these cool filters/containment pod things that keeps viruses from spreading. And in the classic way of the YA dystopian, we have a benevolent government who swooped in and saved everyone, but they may actually not be up to much good at all. Plus, a super group that forms the resistance. Classic tropes for the genre, but they were done well and adapted uniquely for this specific story...just what I hoping for and excited to read! As for our two MCs, I felt we got to know them fairly well - their backstory, their families, and what makes them tick. I thought their relationship was super cute!

Definitely check this out if you’re looking for a YA dystopian with a pandemic twist! I’ll be keeping an eye out for Kristin Cast’s next book ☺️

3.5 stars It was an interesting concept but at times I felt bored, a quick read though! Overall it was just slowly paced for me.

I really struggled with this one. I was so excited to start it because I absolutely love Kristin Cast and pretty much everything she's written. Sadly for me this one was a little bit of a let down though.

The excerpt caught my attention as it is pretty similar to life as we know it now with a virus wiping out a majority of civilization. The civilians live by the motto "No touching today for a healthy tomorrow", which is eerily close to what we practice now with all of the social distancing, however, they take it to the extreme with every thing being hands off, handled by robots, performed in virtual reality, and careers and mates are chosen for you and babies are made in a lab to avoid intimacy with your spouse.

As far as the characters go I felt they were a bit under developed. The primary female character Elodie seems like she could have been such a strong character and we see her grow from a very timid girl who follows the rules but dares to rebel by reading forbidden books to a young woman that's not afraid to go against the rules. I would have loved to see a little more growth from her though and a little bit less whining about a supposedly abusive mom. The main male character Aiden was extremely under developed in my opinion. There's brief flashbacks to his childhood so we know there's trauma but it's not really expanded on. Then there's Blair, a strong woman who's secretly falling apart with multiple neurosis. You also have Elodie's best friend Astrid who was another strong woman that didn't waver in her beliefs until the end where she did a complete turn around.

The plot was also confusing to me with jumping through all the different POVs, flashbacks to the past of Blair and Aiden, and excerpts from a rather poorly written forbidden story. It's never explained why books are banned so that was really confusing as that seemed to be one of the main points of the story. The rest of the plot felt kinda like a combination of all of the plots from the dystopian ya novels of the past with your typical big corporation that is in charge, artificial intelligence, a creepy virtual assistant, technology implants, and your standard evil rebels that are responsible for releasing the virus and everything else bad in the world, and the random experimenting on children. The pacing of the story was also rather slow, it's not until the last 15-20% that things start to really happen. I'm curious to see how the story plays out in the next book now that there's finally some action and things started tying together at the end of this story.

I really enjoyed They Key To Fear despite the few issues I had with it. I felt as if the setting could have been explained more as well as certain aspects of the story. But overall it was an enjoyable read and I do highly recommend it.

This novel needed to have spent more time on world development before introducing the amount of seemingly unconnected characters. By not having a strong understanding of the world, the plot seemed to be stagnant and it was hard to care about what was going on.

The "Key" in THE KEY TO FEAR is an organization that assumes control of the few humans left alive after a virus kills off most of the world. The humans left alive are so afraid of contracting this virus that they allow this organization to control their lives. There is no touching allowed for fear of disease transmission. No kisses, no hugs, so sex....you get the picture. Violations of this rule are punishable by death. This is the first book in a new series. Two individuals start to question the total control of the Key. When their paths cross, they join forces to investigate who is controlling the controllers.

A unique start to a new series. Kristin Cast has done an excellent job of building a world that feels all too real these days and setting two people on the road to finding a solution that we could only hope would help us too. A sci fi that seems too close to nonfiction for comfort.

This story will creep up on you.

It has a relevant post-apocalyptic vibe that feels eerily like foreshadowing for real life. It's set in a world that has suffered catastrophic effects from a virus that has wiped out most of the world's population. The Key corporation was able to safe the few survivors with a vaccine and other safety measures (like a Violet personal bubble) because of this the Key pretty much now runs the remaining world cities (for the good of the people - of course!!). In the fifty years since the pandemic, there is no longer social touching, hand holding, kissing, ANY intimate contact of any kind. All child are made in vitro uteruses and delivered to the families with a nanny bot to care for them for the first 4 years of life. Jobs are selected for you; marriage are made up of the perfect scientific matches. Perfect society, right?!?

Elodie has been living the life she has been told to live, working the job she has been told to work; she is even engaged to merry the man the Key told her to marry. She should be happy, but she isn't. She is restless, but doesn't know why.

Aidan is a rebel within the rules. He tries the boundaries, but never breaks them. He knows the consequences; he just wants to know how far he can push. When he meets Elodie, he sees the the hidden rebel on her. He just needs to help her find her way. No problem. No one will find out or get hurt. It will stay a secret. But in Westfall, nothing stays a secret for long and soon this little rebellion will end up having unexpected consequences, consequences that change both of their lives forever.

This story had a lot of different POVs and can get confusing sometimes as the authors is weaving this story and pulling this plot together. Even now there are still strings of storyline hanging that, I as the reader, hope will be addressed in the following book. It is a story that in my head I think of like piece of art. It starts out slow and vague with the reader trying to get a feeling of what is going on. Then it starts to pickup as more detail and fine tuning is added to give definition and intrigue to the story. Finally, you get that clearer picture of a scene and see what is going on and start to understand the portion that the author was trying to convey. The story unfolded very well. I can't wait for the next book.

** I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. **

ARC Review: Received for free via Netgalley for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Thank you for letting me review this title.

It was a nice read in this moment of world crisis, Kristin Cast always creates worlds with great stories.

I think because of the current state of affairs with COVID-19, I wasn't quite in the right mindset for this book. I liked the character development, especially Elodie's, but overall the story didn't pull me in.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

There is one important rule … “No touching today for a healthy tomorrow.” This rule (with other safety measures) was instituted after a virus almost took out the human race. After this pandemic, The Key was in power. The Key decides everything. It decides who you will be matched with and if you can procreate (in a lab of course). Elodie has always been a rule follower and Aidan never wants to do what he is told. When they un-expectantly get connected, Elodie begins questioning all the rules she has blindly followed. After they discover some secrets about The Key, they have to start hiding some of their nefarious actions. What dark truths will these two uncover?

The Key to Fear is the first book in The Key series. Some parts of this science fiction story made me feel like I knew where it was going, yet there were some surprises along the way. This is not a very long book and Cast has spent some time with world-building, but these added pages were necessary to fully enjoy the story. As a reader who is currently in the Covid-19 Pandemic, it was interesting to think about how extreme the government could go to limit the spread of a deadly virus. Readers who normally read Cast’s fantasy novels can still enjoy this book; they just need to know that it is Sci-Fi. A fun read and I am going to be looking for the next installment … which currently doesn’t have a title or release date!

**Review by @thereaderandthechef**

It is chilling how The Key to Fear is so close to our current situation right now. In a post pandemic world, The Key was created to prevent any viruses that show any potential threat to humanity. No touching is allowed, no kissing, no hugging, no fiction books *gasps*, people walk around in protective pods, the Key chooses your career and love interest, among other life-changing decisions.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it has several POVs, but definitely my favorites were Elodie and Aidan. Elodie is a dedicated and smart young woman, she is a model resident, but as time passes she starts to question her everyday life and it all happens as soon as she meets Aidan, a funny, genuine and sweet guy to whom she instantly becomes friends with. Another character that I really liked was Tavia, she works with Adrian and constant banter between the two was hilarious, I only wish we could have read more of her!

Something that caught my attention was the VR. Humanity in this dystopic world cannot do every day life activities so in order to socialize or travel, they enter into a Virtual Reality program were they can choose to meet up with friends in any type of setting and it feels like if you were really there. I thought that was pretty cool even though it does not beat experiencing this in real life.

The Key to Fear was a great read for me and after that cliffhanger, I am looking forward to read what comes next!

"No touching today for a healthy tomorrow."

This thriller kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. Cast creates a relatively familiar atmosphere with specific elements that set it in the realm of "other" or "alternate" or "possible future". With multiple perspectives the plot is fast paced and the characters are dynamic. Very timely, too. Well done!