I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book but was intrigued enough by the description to give it a go. Well worth the read. It was not too technical, with enough explanations given to not lose the reader.
The story is great, characters with flaws, unenviable decisions and a seemingly no-win situation. It keeps you guessing who really are the bad guys until almost the end.
I look forward to finding more by Scott Olson

I received the Advanced Review Copy of this book and my thanks to the team of NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the copy.

All views expressed in this review are my own and based on my reading of this book. Some of the initial comments were made as I progressed in this book and I have not tried editing them as it expresses my contiguous thoughts as I proceeded with the story.
I rate this book at 3.5 stars rounded to 3.

This is a techno-thriller about hackers and the power struggles between a hacking cult and a former member now with the NSA. The book blurb is lucid and enticing.

Emily the protagonist in this story has a history and a personal vendetta of sorts in this story. Having been a hacker who gets caught and sentenced, a lifeline from the NSA saves her from a trip to prison but now in a different avatar she plans and plots to get back at her former organisation which is a hackers united with focus clearly on money and power with a ruthless streak.
Emily has picked up pieces of her life and trying to do her best work is jolted by an attack where her mother is murdered in her house in a case of mistaken identity, mowed down by an advanced auto model. This story of revenge and her redemption from past crimes has top of the line technology and an all encompassing snooping tool with a life of its own we see Emily torn up with her past experience and relationships in the collective and her duty to see their plans derailed, amped up by her absolute need for revenge.
Like in real life the lines blur between the truth and what just seems like the truth. Her own family history that she has been working hard to distance from seems to beckon into its murky embrace. The story slows down at certain times but keeps its overall tempo till the end. There are commons with the Skynet as Scott seems to give a nod and favour the AI takes over scenario. The story slips seamlessly between the real and the cyber world and with equal fervor. There are a few niggles here and there that slows down reading pace but even out under the overall story.

I would give Scott a thumbs up for a well etched storyline but would have loved reading more details. For a debut novel this is a great story and one which I would pay money to read and wish the author a long innings in the writing profession and expect great things to come up from his pen (i.e. keyboard) ahead.

For most parts of this book I felt that this was a follow-up story or the second book in a series with Emily's experiences as a part of the hackers Collective and her incarceration and deal being the storyline. This story suffers because of this and I felt that Scott could have inserted a prologue providing a short background that would leave the reader free of this seeming hangover. With the story getting hotter with action and pace, the lack of background kept pegging me back in the story.
There is definitely a story that is missing and maybe Scott could write a prequel of sorts for this book.

This is an author to look forward to.

Review of advance reader copy

Hacker Emily Hernandez, working for the NSA, struggles in her efforts to dismantle The Collective, a group of cybercriminals. Emily is determined to put an end to the group and their worldwide hacking. Can she take down APRIL, an Artificial Intelligence she created as a member of The Collective, without hurting her friends?

But, as she sits with her mother, a car crashes into the house. An accident? A deliberate act? An attempt to kill Audrey? Or could the target have been Emily herself?

Can Emily bring down the Collective? Can she keep her friends safe while dismantling the hackers’ group? And why has she become a target?

=========

Told from Emily’s point of view, this thriller grabs the reader from the outset; the pace is relentless, the suspense deepening. Neither Emily nor the reader knows which people can be trusted and which ones have ulterior motives for their actions. The twisty plot leaves the reader guessing and, like Emily, wondering if her choices are the right ones.

Non-stop action, believable characters, and difficult choices keep readers on the edge of their seats as the unfolding story forces Emily to deal with the consequences of her actions while trying to keep her cousin, Kaylin, and her ex-boyfriend, Seymour, protected.

Readers who enjoy techno-thrillers will find much to appreciate in this unputdownable tale of espionage, intrigue, and secrets. As Emily and the reader discover that many of the people around her are not at all who she believed them to be, everyone will be guessing how the story will end.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book from The Book Whisperer and NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
#ZeroDayGhost #NetGalley

Thank you netgalley, publisher and author ❤️

😱😱 That. First. Chapter !!!! Nothing is better than a good first chapter to keep you there the entire book.

This is Scott Olson's debut novel and I can tell you I'll keep an eye on his books in the future!!! I really enjoyed how fast-paced it is. Once I sat down I had to keep reading and I finished it in a day 🙊🙈

I'm not a technology person and know nothing about computers and hackers so I had trouble understanding everything but at the end it didn't bother me and didn't affect me at all.

Emily is a hacker working for the NSA and there's lots of spying and mystery and intriguing on this book!!!! And I truly enjoyed the ride!!!!

Do I recommend it? Ooohhh yes I do!!!!!

2.5/5 for me. For a debut novel its impressive, but my expectations were high as i just finished Blake crouch’s books back to back.
At times its fast paced storytelling is gripping but it leaves you hanging, expecting something more to happen.
The plot is very predictable and the tech words would not help the reader unless you did study computer science.

Emily Hernandez, the main protagonist works for NSA and offers her help in hacking the organisation called collective.

An unfortunate event triggers a cascade of events that changes her life and makes her to search for answers to her burning questions.

Overall it was a decent read if you think of this book as action-spy-mystery-revenge story; calling it a scifi is a bit stretch.
Some subplots could be edited out (that are unnecessary and adds nothing to the plot) to make it even more interesting.

I did enjoy the writing style. However I could not relate to any character as they feel disconnected. A bit more back story between the characters would have helped.

The author has a lot of potential and i will be following his publications.

Thank you net gallery, for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a terrifying story as it is so well written you can believe this might happen. Computers are a strange and powerful thing, so maybe this is based upon true events? Emily is having a bad life and it just keeps getting worse. She sees her mother murdered and that event will send her down a dangerous path. You will not be able to put this book down. Bots that have intelligence? Maybe. Either way, read this book. I was captivated the entire way through this story.

Emily Hernandez was a hacker who was hired by the NSA to stop a botnet she had created as a criminal. But when someone tried to kill her, she fled to Hong Kong. Her goal was to confront the boss of her old company and stop the botnet for good. But the more she investigated, the deeper she found herself in the world of organized crime and secret agencies. She couldn’t trust anyone. The author did an excellent job of making the reader feel as confused as Emily. We didn’t know who to trust and who were the bad guys.

This book was a fast-paced, action-packed thriller that kept you on the edge of your seat. It was full of secret agents, crime bosses, intrigue, explosions, hit men and secret bunkers. Emily was a reluctant hero who tried to distance herself from her family’s dark past. Her parents were domestic terrorists and her extended family was part of the Chinese Triad. She wanted to become a respectable civilian with a boyfriend and a job but the more she tried to escape, the more trouble she found.

ZERO DAY GHOST by Scott Olson

Emily fervently wishes for a normal, settled, stable life and tries hard to “be good” enough to secure it, working for the NSA to atone for “past sins” as a hacker. Despite her good efforts, it gets harder and harder for her to determine who are the good guys, and I found myself in great sympathy with her dilemma and the goal that just gets further beyond her reach. Nurse friends taught me that normal is just a setting on the dryer, but following the spirals of Emily’s life, I see that it’s also a gift I take perhaps too much for granted. I used to periodically thank my mother for our “boring” life growing up, as I saw the opposite in the lives of some students, and Emily’s never-easy life reinforces that gratitude. Despite all that, she has such determination and courage to persist toward good, admirable!
I love this book’s glimpses of Hong Kong, where I’ve never been, but I have friends. I also value warnings about cyber-attacks, driverless cars, drones . . . not fun to think about, but scary-realistic.
This is well-written, tense, fast adventure, as shown by lost sleep and neglect of chores and other entertainment. Clear space on the calendar for this one, or prepare a list of excuses for missed commitments. It’ll be worth it.

Fast paced cyber thriller, a page turner from the first chapter! Emily Hernandez is a prodigal hacker turned NSA analyst, and now she's chasing down her old team to take down the ring leader for the feds. Can she take down the leader without compromising her old friends?

Super heart-pounding ride. I'm studying cybersecurity in school right now, and this is the kind of thing that scares the bejesus out of me! Obviously, this is fiction, but the author knows AI better than most, and this type of stuff is freakily possible in the not-so-distant future! Total thrill ride from beginning to end! ❤️

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital reader's copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review!

Breathless, totally immersing, ZERO DAY GHOST by Scott Olson was that gripping, intelligent story I deeply appreciate for escape into another world. I was caught up in Emily Hernandez's encounters with and pursuit of truth and good against the cybercrime world rife with cold-blooded, ruthless, and diabolical people. Her heart, her creativity, and her ingenuity in facing and battling what seems unstoppable is engaging, deeply involving, and ultimately the best possible escape into story. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Scott Olson has written a remarkably intriguing book. I started it early in the morning and couldn't put it down until I had finished. I don't understand very much about hacking and computer viruses, but this book explained all I needed to know. It's an internationally placed thriller with the good guys, the really bad guys, the love interests, good friends and bad enemies. It's a relatively quick read, and when you pick it up, just know you'll be busy for a few hours. Bravo to this author on a terrific story. Will there be other books with Emily?

I think Zero Day Ghost comes in more at a 2.5 for me - I was engaged and entertained in parts, but overall it was just OK.

Zero Day Ghost launches you at break-neck speed into the life of hacker-turned-NSA analyst Emily Hernandez. She is trying hard not to let her background define her future, but the tangled web of her family history, domestic terrorist and hacker buddies, and current corrupt employers completely upend her world. The story is really less about the technology and more about the relationships of all of Emily's closet skeletons.

If you pick up this book expecting the "near future techno-thriller," you will be disappointed. However, if you are looking for a action-packed revenge and betrayal mystery thriller, you may be pleasantly surprised. I fell into the former category, but about half-way through I found myself one of the latter.

The pace in this story hardly ever lets up. It rolls fairly smoothly from big, bombastic action scene to plot revelations and back again over the course of the story. There were only a few instances where the plot dragged, and they mainly focused around the techno-jargon hacker subplot. Some of this could have been trimmed heavily since the jargon didn't really add anything to the story, and it felt like the hacker lifestyle was pretty Hollywood - stuff we've already seen before and expect from a hacker story.

Where the story really shines is in the characters and their motivations. While the drive behind some the characters felt a little cliché, they all lived their purpose and it made the characters come to life. The only exception to this was Emily herself, where sometimes her motivations seemed misplaced or forced merely for plot convenience. I found myself genuinely wanting to know what happens next as more characters and their backstories popped in. Emily herself did suffer quite a bit from plot-armor and plot-logic to help her get from point A to point B, especially in the second half of the book. She was probably my least favorite character in the whole story, but her situation was so crazy and chaotic, I just had to see where it ended up.

Overall, I felt pretty "meh" about the whole story when I got to the end. One of the big let-downs was that the big mystery that everyone is chasing was pretty obvious after the opening action scene. I held out hope for some sort of subversive twist (since the situation was so chaotic), or a big techno-reveal that would add something original to the space, but alas. I don't feel like my time was wasted reading Zero Day Ghost ; it was just a decent filler between meatier sci-fi thriller reads.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher The Book Whisperer for providing a digital review copy of Zero Day Ghost in exchange for my honest review.

Scott Olson's Zero Day Ghost is a techno-thriller that plunges into emotions of revenge, redemption, and life-and-death choices. Will Emily Hernandez triumph and weave her destiny from vengeance and forgiveness, or will she be ensnared in haunting shadows forever? Emily, who was one of the members of a group known as "The Collective," was previously arrested for computer fraud and abuse and convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. She served only a few months before the NSA came knocking and Emily tried to find her own form of redemption.

Emily is now determined to dismantle The Collective, a ruthless cyber-criminal syndicate led by the cunning Zahra Kartal. Their deadliest creation, "APRIL," an AI botnet, one that Emily has intimate knowledge of since she helped create it, lurks in the shadows of compromised computers. But before she can find a way to track down Zahra, tragedy strikes. Her mother, Audrey Ng, a terrorist who married yet another terrorist, Sebastian Hernandez, ends up dead when a late model volkswagon kills her mother. To top it off, her co-worker Ben has disappeared.

After trying to investigate who may have been responsible, Emily learns that all video footage of the incident has been erased. This brings her to the doorstep of Seymour Frey, who is yet another terrorist who idolizes Antifa like many rich white kids who didn't get enough love from their parents. In all reality, this book is filled with criminals not only in the US, but in Hong Kong where Emily flees to keep out of the hands of the authorities, especially the FBI, and her boss Director Leonard Chip.

Caught between her duty to eradicate The Collective and the haunting presence of her own flesh and blood within the enemy's ranks, her cousin Kaylin, Emily grapples with heart-wrenching decisions. She also finds herself on the run from the people who she thought had her back, as well as the Chinese Communist State who would love to put Emily in a box for life. Who is really the good guys and who are the real bad guys? But the deeper she digs, the more she uncovers in the corrupt world of organized crime and secret agencies who don't give a damn who they hurt as long as they complete their mission.

*Final Thoughts* You know what I hate? Open ended endings where you don't really know if this is a standalone, or part of a series. Emily tries to be a white hat hacker working for the NSA, but when push comes to shove, her friends and her family are either terrorists or criminals. Yet, I am not supporting the NSA. I haven't been a fan since I learned they were literally spying on all of us without a warrant. I am not a fan of authors who think Antifa is anything but a group of terrorists who have beaten up journalists, burned down hundreds of businesses from coast to coast, and in Europe. Stop making these people out to be heroes fighting fascism!

I received a free copy of, Zero Day Ghost, by Scott Olson, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Emily Hernandez who is a former hacker turned good guy has got a job to do, she wants to dismantle a cyber criminal syndicate, which is easier said then done. This book is much edgier then Im used to, it was hard to understand the computer jargon at times, but is over all a good read.

A female lead and an intriguing debut novel of cyberspace and crime. Enjoyable read set in US and Hong Kong with lots of twists and turns in the plot. I enjoyed it. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy

Emily Hernandez is a former hacker, hired by the NSA to hunt down an neutralise a malicious botnet she had previously released to the world. But when she narrowly escapes an assassination attempt, she goes under cover - and rogue -into Hong Kong to confront the head of her former organisation and stop the botnet for good. But the deeper she digs, the more she uncovers in the corrupt world of organised crime and secret agencies.

This was a fast-paced, action packed thriller, right from the opening page,full of secret agents, crime bosses, intrigue, explosions, hit men and underground railroads. Emily, a reluctant hero, is trying to distance herself from her family's murky heritage - parents domestic terrorists, extended family part of the Chinese Triad - and become a respectable civilian, but the more she tries to escape, she is drawn further and further into the shadow world as both the agents and the AI set traps for her

While some of the pacing felt a little forced at times , the overall story was an enjoyable read. It was well written in a vividly descriptive style, with believable dialogue and lots of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing.

From the first car crash, all the way to the final scene, this becomes a non-stop rollercoaster of action that I could easily see this adapted for the silver screen.

In this age of the rise of artificial intelligence this is a very timely, sobering novel about the consequences if AI goes bad. How many internet connected devices are out there that have the potential to harbour a bot like APRIL? And when will the war between AI and the humans begin?

This was Scott Olsen's debut novel. Well worth the read for fans of thrillers, intrigue and fast paced spy novels.
An author to watch out for.

~Many thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~

If you love espionage, intrigue, and AI this is the book for you. Filled with danger, spy vs. spy in cyber space, and unlimited suspense this one will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Emily took the deal to work for the CIA but soon finds herself in the crosshairs of more than one agency, terrorists, China, and her own creation APRIL an AI that’s capable of taking them all out.

With the help of her sister Kaylin a hacker on the outside of the law, and three unlikely Allie’s she might just survive another day.

Spanning two continents, this book moves along at breakneck speed and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I was given a copy by The Book Whisperer through NetGalley. This is my own opinion of the book.

Emily was formerly a rogue hacker, but became less active when she moved across the country to look after her mother, whose health was failing. That isn't working well, and it ends abruptly when a car comes through the wall of their residence and runs over her mother in her bed. There seems to be no driver, and after a few moments of grinding back and forth over the bed, the car exits, only to return a moment later from a different angle and repeat the attack.

The car quickly leaves again, leaving death and confusion in its wake. It seemed to be an unbranded vehicle, of a non-conventional shape. It had no door handles, keeping Emily from opening the door and accosting the driver, if any.

After the attack, she researches possible vehicles, self-driving, and comes up with a match with a company associated with a former co-worker. Who just happens to be associated with a company that makes self-driving cars. The car involved in the incident was scheduled for destruction by the company, and apparently made an unscheduled trip before arriving at the destruction location.

Now Emily has a quest, to determine why this crime occurred, and get revenge on the one who set it up.

This is essentially a science fiction techno-thriller. It would make a good movie.

The first chapter of Zero Day Ghosts really catches your attention and leaves you hanging on throughout the rest for a wild ride. I loved that the story featured a female hacker, it was engaging and will defiantly be a favorite of coding and computer fans.

Though the story has many twists, I felt lost at times, but the suspense really keeps you hooked.

An interesting cyber thriller with elements of sci-fi thrown in. Good characters and a plot that sometimes went over my head.