Thank you to Netgalley, The Quick Brown Fox & CO and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC.

This book was so different then anything I typically read and I REALLY enjoyed it and devoured it. The story is told in 3 storylines and comes together so well at the end! I found the story line very original and the writing kept me on the edge of my seat.

If you are a fan of John Marrs or Blake Crouch you will absolutely love this book!

5 Stars!

For anyone wondering, this is a thriller sci-fi, but set very much on Earth in the not so distant future. So if space sci-fi is not your thing, no worries! That being said: run to read this book! I was absolutely captivated from start to finish by this thought-provoking novel. So much so that I added Kira Peikoff as a must read author before I even finished the book. Excellent!

Baby X took me on quite the twisty adventure, that was unlike anything else I have read before. I love a futuristic read and this one did not disappoint. It was twisty and engaging. I highly recommend.

I’m not usually a science fiction reader, but this book caught my eye and I had to read it. Set in the future, with all the crazy things technology could provide, it seemed very possible that this story could be our future. The story itself was engaging and Lily, Quinn and Ember each tell their parts of the tale with the connections finally coming together in the end. I enjoyed the story and its twists and turns, but hate the thought that we would ever become a society where we have so little privacy and offspring are “Selected” for their traits or where our DNA can be collected by strangers and used to create a baby. This was well written and I definitely recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books, and the author for an ARC of this book which I had the pleasure of reading. All opinions are my own. Publication date: March 5, 2024

Thank you to NetGalley & Crooked Lane Books for an ARC of Baby X! I started reading this between other books so it took me a bit to get into, but once I got started I couldn’t put it down.

I am a sucker for some dystopian fiction, and this book did not disappoint! The premise was not too far off from a possible reality with the way genomics and technology is advancing, I think that’s what made the idea of the future that Kira Piekoff built so appealing.

Maybe I am naive or wasn’t paying attention in the beginning, but for the first 70% of the book I was wondering why the two different story lines were included and how they would converge, even though I was enjoying both of them separately too. I somewhat saw the twist coming, but not in the way it unfolded! I think it was really interesting to think about what the implications of gene manipulation would potentially be for different people, especially those less privileged versus more privileged. Lots to unpack. Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

This book was serious, but still so fun to read. The intriguing (and scary) vision of the future Peikoff created was immersive. The characters felt relatable, even when the situations they found themselves in were NOT.
Also; major Kyle XY vibes.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

Stealing DNA , black market sites, and choosing the perfect embryo. All quite terrifying! I hope the future never brings such a thing!

The Vault is a black market scam that steals and then sells DNA from desirable individuals. They are all about $$ and willing to do almost anything to get the payoff they seek.

Obviously, this is speculative fiction! The pacing didn't hold up for me though. There were three POV's that didn't flow well, the characters felt disconnected. I wasn't as engaged as I would have liked to be and ended up skimming some pages. I'd get hooked and read, read, then the story would get bogged down with techy jargon and I'd want to quit.

Very intriguing premise, but the execution failed me. I didn't connect with any characters, so I wasn't invested. Also, some of the happenings were too over the top for me even though I really enjoy sci-fi thrillers. Check out more reviews because I may be a bit of an outlier!

Baby X has a fascinating premise that had me clicking request even though the genre is definitely outside of my comfort zone, and I really enjoyed the read!

In the near future, citizens use advanced technology to create embryos and select which one to implant based on health and personality traits. This opens the door for genetic thievery, and there is a black market called The Vault where people attempt to puchase the genetic material of the elite- athletes, performers, and the like. Ember is a bio- security guard who helps keep her clients’ DNA out of the hands of thieves, and her latest client is a famous entertainer who is faced with a pregnant woman saying she thinks she is having his baby.

The book was well written, with so many interesting futuristic details. The contact lenses that replace cell phones (only old people have those now), the automated vehicles that have cut out all traffic fatalities, the way technology is used in the workplace- it all felt like it could truly be in our near future. Which makes the DNA thievery a scary thought! The premise truly fascinated me and had all kinds of moral and ethical dilemmas running through my mind.

The story takes so many twists and turns, and it managed to surprise me several times as it raced along to a wild climax. It takes dips into domestic suspense, thrills, and even a bit of romance along the way. I was very entertained and can’t wait to discuss it with my book club!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This was a really different story for me, not one I would normally read. In fact, I had bypassed it several times on Netgalley without requesting it before seeing a review for it elsewhere and deciding to give it a go. I'm glad I did.

In a world where tech has advanced so much that DNA from saliva or hair can be used to create embryos, an illicit black market springs up to steal celebrity DNA to sell to create babies. I thought that this would be the main premise of the book. But it actually goes deeper than this and becomes more of a thriller. A really good read with some interesting twists and turns.

This book right here! 5/5 stars! If you like John Marrs - Author speculative thriller books (The one, The passengers, The minders, The marriage act) then this is right up your alley! Fast paced and short chapters too!
Set in the near future, technology has advanced at an alarming rate and so has the genetics field. Anyone can create a baby now with any 2 cells from any 2 people. This causes its own dilemma especially for the 'desirables' (people of fame, fortune or desirable traits) as your discarded cells can be potentially used without your knowledge to make a baby! We follow 3 women Quinn, Ember & Lily as the navigate the perils of what this means for them in a world we could one day recognise.
High praise for Kira Peikoff. Thanks to NetGalley and Quick Brown Fox&co for an advanced copy which is out in early March 2024!

My unrestrained thoughts: Amazing. Show-stopping. Spectacular. Top-notch. A fucking masterpiece. But still a one-time read for me.
Now, onto a little sophisticated review – it may contain tiny spoilers!

Kira Peikoff’s Baby X is set in the future USA, where everything has advanced to another level. Phones have been replaced by digital contact lenses. Driverless vehicles are in place of cars of this age. And, more importantly, having sex is not necessary to have kids anymore. You read that right – all you need is some of your cells –swiped from anything you touch – to transform them into sperm or eggs!

In such a biologically volatile world, celebrities are at the most risk of discovering they are the other parent to a random child. It doesn’t help that the Vault exists – the black-market site that steals DNA matter for the right bid. With that backdrop, we meet three women – Quinn, Ember, and Lily – whose lives intertwine in a way I never saw coming.

Quinn, a surrogate, thinks her latest client has put a baby of his and the admired singer, Trace Thorne’s, in her womb. Emily, his bio-guard, thinks it’s impossible because she’s been taking good care of her boyfriend’s cells. While Lily, a young journalist, is on a quest that seems removed from the engineered baby fiasco with the other two. But you would be wrong to think that, and so was I.

The mystery is well-planned, and it had me biting my nails as I turned page after page. The ending was even better; I never saw it coming, even though I didn’t like a few parts of it, especially the sequence with the bomb. But I was able to ignore it because I am honestly in love with this unique world. So futuristic yet believably real!


What I liked about the book:

Easy to follow: Being a sci-fi novel, and a thriller one at that, it was obvious there would be an onslaught of sci-fi terms and technical jargon. Usually, the technical jargon is one of the biggest points why I am slow with sci-fi thriller novels. But this one was a fairly quick read for me. It was easy to follow whatever was happening, and I could’ve finished it even earlier if not for the PDF format I read it from.

Unique plot: The concept of using DNA to make eggs and sperm is actually genius. But Peikoff takes it up a notch and adds an evil organization to the mix! I have never read or thought of something as unique as this one, so the story in itself felt refreshing. It was set in the future so most of the things came across as new and mysterious to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if more books come out with a plot inspired by this dystopia! And I will definitely be the first one to read it.

Trace Thorne: That guy was the best part of the whole novel, and even Lily agrees with me! He’s this humble superstar who had his life embroiled in a mystery he was never supposed to be a part of. But instead of going on a blame game, he just took it in stride. Even going so far as to be the embodiment of not the stepfather but the father who stepped up! He was an unproblematic and endearing part of the story that I will never forget.


What I wasn’t impressed with

The novel didn’t give me time to feel the relationship blooming between the characters. Admittedly, given the book’s intricate need for worldbuilding, it made sense to rush through these seemingly inconsequential things. But it also made it difficult for me to really connect with them.

Even more so, each of them – Lilly, Ember, and Quinn – annoyed me at some point. Ember’s insistence on hiding her past from her fiancé was absurd, especially when hiding meant just adding more to Thorne’s future pain. This little point irritated me as much as Quinn’s naivety in believing a random guy she met at a random concert.

But the actions of these two were still bearable when compared to Lily’s. In fact, through her resentment-colored glasses – lenses may be more fitting – it felt like she didn’t really like her parents, and unabashedly let her resentment and jealousy take over at times. Since her perspective is colored with her feelings, it also makes it seem like her parents didn’t like her, especially her mother. Which we find out later was partially true.

On top of the clunky characterization, the drawn-out paragraphs over unnecessary things also bothered me. For example, the author felt the desperate need to point out Quinn’s pregnancy by showing how big she is. Maybe it was a way to remind us, but I didn’t like to read how huge, enormous, ballooned, and basketball belly she had. Or also how Shane’s tie colors and shirts are different every day.

But fortunately, I was able to look over it all because the base of the plot was intriguing enough!


My final thoughts?

Baby X paints a dystopian picture that seems to be a very much possible future. It makes you stop and think about what our society is hurtling toward while raising some ethical questions about technology. And to weave this all in a fictional story? Definitely needs to be read by everyone!


Thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
#netgalley #arcreview

A propulsive sci-fi thriller that I raced through in a single day. The book is set in a future where technology can create eggs and sperm from anyone's cells, which of course creates a black market featuring stolen celebrity DNA. The story follows several characters, and I was impressed with Peikoff's intricate plotting. The writing was a bit clunky at times, but the strength of the plot carried me through. Thank you to NetGalley, The Quick Brown Fox & CO, and Crooked Lane Books for a digital review copy.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this advanced readers copy of Baby X. In the future, gene editing is accepted and is the new way of giving birth. There are two very different story lines that explore the reality of what happens when genetics are on the black market and when your parents decide which embryo to "select". A good addition to the sci-fi genre.

Kira Peikoff's 'Baby X' throws you right into a future where picking your baby's traits is just how things are done. It's got a 'Gattaca' vibe but stands on its own. The story grips you from the get-go, weaving together the lives of celebrity Trace Thorne, who's always watching out for DNA theft; Ember Ryan, his bio-security guard; Quinn, a woman stirring up controversy; and Lily, a journalist trying to untangle the ethical knots of this world. Peikoff's got this knack for creating suspense, asking big questions about control, identity, and what being a parent really means. The story builds tension perfectly and ends on a high note. You get to see the world through Ember, Quinn, and Lily's eyes, I found it engaging enough to read it in just one day. I think it’s a good choice for anyone who loves ethical brain teasers and it would be great for book clubs.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book ahead of its release in exchange for an honest review.

I firstly just have to say that my expectations for this book were sky-high. Did that impact my enjoyment of it? Maybe, but I was so taken in by the premise that I had to get excited. ‘Baby X’ has an uncomfortable dystopian energy, reminiscent of Black Mirror or Gattaca. It’s a world where DNA is a coveted prize and babies are almost entirely created via a means of science instead of sex.

The story follows Ember Ryan, a bio security guard determined to protect the DNA of her client and music superstar, Trace Thorne. I felt like her character voice grew a little tedious at times, but I enjoyed the singular insight she was able to bring to the story.

Where ‘Baby X’ lost me was towards the end when things slowed down. It felt like the action needed to be played up more for what was at stake, and the writing was very functional. Basically it might not have been for me, but I truly recommend it to lovers of the cozy dystopia/speculative fiction genre. Maybe to fans of Aldous Huxley?

Madi

I really enjoyed this propulsive speculative fiction. It’s set 20 years in the future when parents are able to select their designer baby from IVF made embryos. Even a trace amount of DNA inadvertently left behind can be turned into a gamete and be used to produce a baby. I enjoyed seeing how the different story lines came together. It was interesting, fast paced, and would be a good fit for fans of John Marrs.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advances reader copy.

Baby X is a sci fi thriller that manages to straddle the line between the two genres so well.
Since technology has increased, pregnancy is now down to a science. New parents can select an embryo that perfectly matches their hopes for their child without the threat of genetic disease that are now being eradicated. However, this means if you have enough of a person's DNA you can have a child with a person without even meeting them. Ember has started a biosecurity company that promises to protect celebrity's DNA from being stolen.
This was so twisty and interesting. The science fiction elements were so well crafted and realistic and the thriller aspects made it a fantastic read.

Imaginative and intricate, this sci-fi thriller blends a near-future world of inventive hi-tech gadgets and norms (fantastical, but perhaps only barely), with a thoughtful commentary on engineered procreation - in this case labeled “precision reproduction” - and its affect on the fragile identities of the generations of these humans “selected” for the privilege of birth.

Told in the third-person POV voices of three women, each of them struggling with “baby” related issues, the story winds and weaves on separate tracks, right up to an unexpected finale, that culminates in (no spoilers here) a satisfying and well-crafted conclusion.

- Lily Thompson is a wanna be journalist, recently graduated from college, and desperately looking for the byline that will turn her internship at the well-esteemed Vanguard magazine into a full-time gig.

- Ember Ryan is a Biochemist, a PHD, with the remarkable job of protecting celebrities from stolen DNA, which in this advanced world, can be used (illegally and without consent) to unleash all sorts of privacy issues, including its lab-driven extraction into what may become new humans.

- Quinn Corrigan is a copper-haired, somewhat naive, surrogate mom, looking for nothing more than a pregnancy-funded respite from financial worry.

With the tech-creativity of “Black Mirror”, meeting dystopian breeding capabilities much advanced beyond “Brave New World” , this is a fun and interesting read, recommended for those who enjoy near-worlds sci-fi and the not-too-implausible world of futuristic biotechnology.

A great big thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Baby X by Kira Peikoff’s premise intrigued me from the start, but I didn’t think it would drag me in the way it did.

In the near future, reproductive advanced technology has evolved to where any person’s cells can create an egg or sperm, making it so celebrities may come face to face with a child they never conceived. This is made possible by The Vault, a black market website which has made its way by stealing the DNA of celebrities and selling it to the highest bidder. Singer Trace Thorne is tired of being paying ransom money to keep his cells protected, so he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety. When the two are confronted though by a pregnant woman named Quinn, who claims she is pregnant with Thorne’s baby, all bets are off and Thorne and Ember are pulled into a messy web of deceit and betrayal.

This book was very well written and the pacing was really well done. The plot definitely felt eerie at times as the whole scenario of this book definitely felt like it could be real. The author did a fantastic job painting this world and the processes in place. She also makes it very easy to understand. I could visualize it all perfectly.

We follow this story through three perspectives: Ember’s, Quinn’s and also through Lily, a young woman who is trying to make her way through the world of journalism, investigating a piece on the bias of “selection clinics,” the process of choosing the perfect embryo for implantation. If I could give one criticism, there were times that Lily’s story didn’t fully fit in with the rest of the story, though the end ties it together very neatly. I felt there wasn’t enough there to fully keep me engaged with Lily’s story. That said, I thought that Ember and Quinn’s stories were well put together and I really liked seeing how they melted together. As far as twists go, which this story has multiple I didn’t see that final one coming, it was definitely well executed!

Overall though, this book was super engaging and definitely held my interest until the end! Definitely would recommend this one to others.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Release Date: 3/5/24

Unique sci fi thriller! Advanced technology in the near future allows eggs or sperm to be created from anyone’s cells. This makes leaving behind anything as obscure as a stray hair, eyelash or used straw a commodity worth stealing, especially if you’re a celebrity. Bio security guard, Ember Ryan, is hired by celebrity clients to protect against DNA theft. But even Ember is outwitted by one pregnant woman claiming her client is the father of her baby. This was a cleverly and well thought out speculation of what the future could hold for us. I think fans of John Marrs and Blake Crouch will love this one. Thank you Netgalley, The Quick Brown Fox and Co, and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be available for purchase on March 5, 2024