Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

I could not put this book down. I love the concept behind the book so much - a futuristic world where technology can easy create a baby from two people's cells, and the drawback of unconsensual conception is a fascinating concept. I really enjoyed Ember, Lily and Quinn's POVs. The story was very intriguing and all the characters were very, with Ember being a bioguard, protecting the celebrity Thorne from someone stealing his cells to create babies, Lily, a journalist trying her best to pitch and write a compelling article, and Quinn, a surrogate mother. The concept was really well executed, the story is fast paced, and the reveals are shocking. I literally had to pause to scream. And then immediately go back to reading since I needed answers. This book is crazy good, I don't know if I'll be able to go sleep after this, because I'm still thinking about the book. Like wow, I cannot believe some of the things that happened. And everything comes together really well.

Even reading the description I wasn't sire if I wanted this book. It sounded intriguing but also a little tabloid/reality TVish. And it was. Both. And I both liked and disliked it for both. It was tabloid-like. And it was intriguing. The science and the morals were incredibly silly (especially in light of the fact that at least one state forces people to keep embryos frozen forever because disposing of one is murder). Yeah, there is no way this works. But then the idea of celebrity being a victim of its own ridiculous non-stop pursuit of followers and fans kind of has an appeal.

What I didn't expect was to be intrigued by some of the relationships that came out of this new technology and new time. And that is the point of science fiction. It's not just the science, it is how the science affects the world and how the world affects the science. That is where this book shines. The writing is OK. The science is far-fetched and sometimes silly. The affect and what is does to people and their relationships with other people. That is where the story will always be.

Ll
In "Baby X" by Kira Peikoff, the author skillfully weaves a narrative that feels eerily plausible, offering readers a chilling glimpse into a potential future. The story had me captivated from the start, evoking a sense of suspense reminiscent of a Twilight Zone or Black Mirror episode. The unsettling yet gripping nature of the plot kept me hooked, making it a compelling and thought-provoking read. Overall, "Baby X" is a well-crafted exploration of a possible future that lingers in the mind long after the final page.

Thank you, NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for this advanced readers copy. OMG!! I loved this book! I was hooked just from reading the description and WOW, the book did not disappoint! In the future, science is able to reproduce through human cells of any kind. No more sex for reproduction, JUST FUN TIMES! But with this advanced technology comes its misuse. There are always those who will look at profits over what is good for society. Here comes the evil corporation stealing genetic material of celebrities for anyone who has enough money to create their offspring. The book jumps between different characters to find out how in the end this technology affects each person. What did I love most?! That in this near fictionalized future we win bodily autonomy?! That this is possible future technology and everyone has rights to reproduce?! There is still bad in this fictionalized society so it is not perfect. But still an amazing book that I will read again.

In the not too distant future, science has found a way for any two people's DNA to be combined to create a baby. Unfortunately, this exciting technology has led to a new type of black market where anyone with enough money can buy a celebrity's DNA and make themselves a permanent feature in their life by having a child with them. In Baby X, we follow three women as their lives are impacted by this embroyo technology.

This was such a gripping thriller as not only were we uncovering the secrets of the mystery in this book but Peikoff raises intriguing questions around medical ethics, eugenics, and nature vs. nurture. There are a lot of deliberately uncomfortable moments within the book as we see a completely different landscape for conceiving children and the new stigmas that arise in such a society.

I don't want to give too much of the story or plot away because this is a book that truly is worth going in with as little foreknowledge as possible.

The fact that this book is told through three POVs meant that some diverse perspectives were offered to the story as well as building suspense as chapters would frequently end on mini-cliffhangers. Unusually for a multi-perspective book, I didn't think that there were any dud POVs as I genuinely wanted to know where each woman's story took them. I also thought the consistent rotation worked well as the reader knew what to expect with the POV shifts.

I highly recommend picking up this book and I am interested to hear the conversations that are readers have about this book's topics.

Final Rating: 5⭐

What an extraordinary, enthralling, and utterly gripping masterpiece! From the very first page, I found myself utterly engrossed in the narrative, unable to tear myself away until the final sentence. In fact, I found myself longing for the story to continue indefinitely.

Kira Peikoff's Baby X seamlessly blends the realms of Science Fiction and Mystery. Peikoff skillfully interweaves multiple narratives, infusing the story with a sense of urgency and intrigue. Against the backdrop of a futuristic society where natural birth is a relic of the past, the characters navigate complex moral dilemmas and confront the consequences of their actions.

With each turn of the page, Baby X captivates with its blend of speculative fiction and thrilling mystery. Peikoff's characters are deeply compelling, and her storytelling prowess shines throughout.

In summation, Baby X by Kira Peikoff stands as a remarkable speculative thriller, offering readers a riveting exploration of morality, identity, and the boundless possibilities of the future.

In the near-future, babies can be made by any little bit of cell material left behind. There’s a black market for celebrity dna. Ember protects her famous client from cell theft. When a woman claims to be pregnant with her client’s baby, it’s a mystery how it happened.

This was a sci-fi fantasy that was not only interesting, but very easy to understand. There was no struggling or doing physics to try to understand the plot. It was very straight forward (for a sci-fi). I especially loved that the plot and all the ideas of the future seemed extremely realistic. It’s an entertaining plot and gets very exciting at the end. I also loved how everything came together; I was absolutely shocked and in awe by how it wove together at the end.

“It was like getting away with murder, except he was getting away with births.”

Baby X comes out 3/5.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Baby X releases March 5, 2024

Respectfully, what the fuck??! 😃
This had the potential to be a five star read if not for the glaring plot hole that invalidates the entire plot twist, which I’ll explain under a spoiler warning at the end of this review.


Set in a futuristic dystopian world where there are smart contact lenses instead of cellphones, holograms, and android dogs, there is also the concept where any cell containing DNA can be turned into sperm or eggs to create a baby.
This is fine if it’s all done consensually (similar to modern day IVF), however, there’s a black-market group called The Vault that blackmails and collects the DNA from high-profile people, to which others can buy the sperm and eggs of and create a stolen/non-consensual child that they’re unaware of.

Told through multi-pov, we meet the following characters:
Quinn — a surrogate who is convinced that she’s pregnant with the child of a celebrity musician.
Thorne — aforementioned musician who is currently engaged to a woman he previously hired to accompany him on tour as a DNA security guard.
Ember — Thorne’s fiancée and former DNA security guard.
Lily — a journalist for a magazine.

Although I found parts of this to be highly predictable (ahem, the mention of crypto was too obvious), I was still franticly turning the pages until the very end to figure out how the hell Lily was relevant to the plot.

I thought the stealing of high-profile DNA would have been more lucrative and an active part of the story, but we literally don’t see anyone in the general public attempt to stalk high-profile people. Apart from the one article mentioned about the basketball player, everyone seems to just keep to themselves.



<b>*SPOILERS BELOW*</b>



I feel like I’ve been rick-rolled or something… or maybe I should have paid more attention to the dates and years of birth for the characters.
The red herrings were clever in the sense that we’re lead to believe that it’s all one timeline, when in reality it’s a dual (past/present) running parallel to each other. Majority of the cast had multiple identities, so it was nearly impossible to guess how things were connected until the author wanted you to know. But it’s never explained why Quinn’s name is Winnie in Lily’s timeline??

As for the major twist — it’s impossible for Ember to be Lily’s mother because in Lily’s pov she overhears the doctor saying that her mother has never been pregnant before, YET, in Ember’s pov, she tells us that she suffered a miscarriage and that was the whole reason why she went after the governor of Texas.
Miscarriage = previously pregnant, so the big reveal of the identity of Lily’s parents (which was drawn out until the literal last chapters) does not add up!!

What a treat to read! If they're done well - and this one certainly is - nothing is more entertaining to me than a tale set in the future with the requisite bells-and-whistles (and only dreamed about in my life) technology. Add in a plot stolen from the headlines - IVF facilities and the uses/misuses thereof - and I'm hooked. Suffice it to say I stayed that way from page one to the end.

An act passed by the government in the late 2030s green-lighted the right to reproductive autonomy; now, a would-be parent or parents could choose a child by desired genetic characteristics, and in vitro storage and implant labs are in high demand. They also bring the potential for crime, such as stealing DNA from selected individuals. That's a big concern for superstar singer Trace Thorne, who seems to be the target of one of the black market mills called the Vault. In fact, he's had to ante up ransom money to get his removed, and he's had it; to prevent it from happening again, he hires Ember Ryan, a self-styled bio-security guard. She seems to be doing a great job - that is, until a very pregnant woman and surrogate mother named Quinn Corrigan shows up to claim he's the father. Oops!

The story shifts from the perspectives of Quinn, Ember and a young journalist named Lily; the latter is a bit different from her peers in that she's not one of the in-vogue "selected" babies; her parents had her the old-fashioned way. Now, she's trying to make a byline for herself by writing a story detailing some of the evils of the IVF process by using her own parents as examples. Problem is, they aren't cooperating, leaving Lily to wonder why - and her career hanging in the balance.

It's hard to say much more without spilling too many beans, but needless to say, the action - and twists - just keep coming until a real surprise at the end. Definitely a winner in my book, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for giving me the opportunity to get in on the action by way of a pre-release copy. Outstanding!

Baby X is a SciFi thriller that keeps the reader guessing throughout the entire story.

We have 3 POVs, which initially felt like too much and had me wondering what exactly POV 3 had to do with the overall story. Ultimately, that was a good thinking because it kept me thinking and trying to puzzle out where the plot was leading. The inclusion of all the futuristic technology was like a character in and of itself. I could easily see the technology talked about here as things that we will have in our lifetime and it actually makes me a bit apprehensive!

This is a book that had an incredibly satisfying resolution although it did feel like it was dragging in the middle. Still a great read for those SciFi lovers.

A great book for lovers of speculative fiction, dystopia (the non-apocalyptic kind) and thrillers.

Baby X by Kira Peikoff is a super-satisfying speculative future tale that follows several key characters in a world where traditional baby making is a thing of the past and frowned upon by most of society. Set around mid this century (2050ish,) moms and dads get to pick from a variety of curated embryos that have been evaluated for all kinds of predispositions, diseases and traits. No surprise that the government is behind it as it weeds out a lot of ailments. Diseases like caner and genetic defects, which are expensive to treat become nearly preventable.

There’s not a lot of privacy in this brave new world. In order to be on the national health insurance your genetic must be stored with the government. Also, due to the pervasiveness of social media and technology your every move seems to be trackable by almost anyone. The author has done a great job of painting a pretty wild dystopia where there seems to be good intentions galore, but as you can probably imagine, a lot can go wrong... and does.

Baby X had many of the elements that I love in a book. It was a thriller, dystopian, dealt with reproductive autonomy and contained some interesting characters. It also had a touch of romance, but it didn’t overwhelm the story. The main characters face many decisions and dilemmas that were pretty interesting to read about. The author really explored the gray area in many things. This future world, like ours, does not deal in absolutes, or black and white.

The one critique I can mention is that I felt a little bored with one of the three main characters story-lines at first. But her story got pretty exciting. it just took longer than the rest of the characters. Probably more of a personal problem, I wasn’t being patient!

Overall this was a solid 4.5/5 star read that wasn’t too heavy to read, despite it being about some heavy topics. The author did a great job making the topics surrounding science, technology and reproduction really accessible and easy for a lay person to understand. I enjoyed that the author focused on the characters and story as opposed to taking the opportunity to give us a class on DNA!

This was a very enjoyable read and will appeal to those who enjoy thrillers, dystopia and speculative fiction. To me, it was kind of reading the opposite of the book “Red Clocks” by Leni Zumas, where reproduction is all very locked down. It was interesting to consider the vast differences in the futures painted in both books while reading this Baby X. Fans of Red Clocks would probably enjoy Baby X, too.

Thank you to Netgalley, Kira Peikoff and The Quick Brown Fox & CO, Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this exciting new novel.

This is a fast-paced, twisty sci-fi/spec-fi thriller that I've seen described as Gattaca meets Black Mirror, great for fans of Blake Crouch. Peikoff presents a future that doesn't seem at all farfetched - we've all heard stories of obsessed fans trying to steal used condoms from celebrities, and this is just that with more sophisticated tech. I think I would have appreciated leaning a bit more into the ethical issues around genetic selection and implications of the vault, but the development of the thriller plot was more of a focus. Overall it was a really engrossing read!

As a side note, apparently the author's debut novel is in a similar vein focused on embryo personhood, so that's going on my TBR after recent events...

I give this 2.5 stars rounded up.

I really liked the premises of this book and was looking forward to reading it, but there was something that didn't quite translate to the story telling. I wasn't a fan of the story telling or the pace.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC

This is such an interesting premise, promising a dystopian near-future “speculative thriller”! Unfortunately, the execution falls very short of its potential for me.

I had to DNF this book after slogging through it all week and only reaching 25 percent. My issues with this book:

- There was so much telling and so little showing. I didn’t feel like I was experiencing a story so much as reading brief summaries of scenes.
- The dialogue was not terribly engaging (and sometimes veered into cheesy), and the characters—no matter their age—read like teenagers.
- Combined, these issues rendered the characters super flat and one-dimensional
- I felt slung back and forth between three POVs I couldn’t keep straight, because their voices were so indiscernible.

Unfortunately, I just could not immerse myself nor care much what happened next. Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Speculative sci-fi thriller that examines the implications of designer babies in a future society.

What if you and your partner decide that you’re ready to be parents? Instead of conventional conception methods, baby will be created in a lab from pieces of your DNA. You will be able to select — or select OUT — characteristics, traits, intelligence, etc. to ensure you have exactly the baby you want. Babies will be healthy because those hereditary conditions won’t be part of the equation. It should all be perfect for everyone, right?

Not so fast. Some of these selected kids have existential issues about how they are programmed to behave and what they are meant to achieve based on those chosen for them by the parents. Eventually the process is corrupted when scientists figure out that some people will pay big money to have babies with the superstars. But they have to steal it. What a moral and ethical quandary.

Three women are dealing with their own situations surrounding this evolution in the whole process of having children. Although it is initially difficult to see how the lives of Quinn, Lily, and Ember will converge, their individual story lines eventually do.

The premise of this was so intriguing but something got lost with the way the characters were developed and presented. Told in 3 different points of view, none of the women were especially likable and the climax seemed quite over the top verging on a bit ridiculous. It was interesting medical science and that part was all too believable, and I always enjoy those details.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.
3.5 stars

I'm a huge fan of speculative thrillers, reminiscent of John Marrs and this was a great read! While the actual writing kept it from a 4 or 5 star for me, the idea, premise and fast paced fun was great!

I loved this book. Clever storytelling, interesting ideas, and the ending was excellent. Love the concepts explored. Don’t want to say much more because it’s best to go in blindly. Great read.

The premise of this was great, but I found the pacing to be off. I was hooked in the beginning but the middle part really dragged for me. It took me a lot longer to finish because I wasn’t motivated to pick it up. The ending was a lot quicker, although a little far-fetched.

The idea of ‘designer babies’ and stolen DNA is an interesting one! At some points there was a lot of medical information, so if you like medical thrillers, you will probably enjoy this book.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Lily’s POV. She was my least favorite character. I will say the twist completely shocked me, I did not see that coming at all!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Baby X by Kira Peikoff is a gripping thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat! Peikoff masterfully crafts a suspenseful story filled with twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the very end. With its thought-provoking premise and well-developed characters, this book is a must-read for any thriller fan. Five stars all the way!

Intruiging story but a bit too predictable for me. Nothing was surprising about the thriller or twist here, every single bit was expected from the beginning. But outside of that the story did feel fresh and was written in a way that made it an easy read. Tough to find those these days. Interesting perspective of the future.