I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
It is a mixture of fantasy, science-fiction and mystery. The set-up is excellent introducing the reader to two of the main characters but giving us no clues as to their linkages and then throwing in a “mad scientist “. There are lots of twists and turns and the characters are well drawn to engage our empathy.
Good, solid escapism.

Okay so this book was good, but I requested it based on the cover and assumed it was going to be a Greek retelling. That's on me, I really need to read the book descriptions better (I actually do read them, this one was an early netgalley request)

This story is very sci-fi and critical of the world we live in. Think like 1984, Slaughter-House V, or Fahrenheit 51 meets Star Wars or Divergent. It is not a YA book in my opinion, though, so maybe don't hand it to your kids. This book will definitely keep you engaged.

Titan's Tears by Chad Lester was an interesting read. This book was slow to start off especially as it took me a while to get into it, but keep with it as it became an interesting read. It is a mixture of fantasy, science-fiction and mystery about unnatural things happening on an isolated island off the coast of Alaska.

This is the first book I have read by Chad and it will not be my last

Big Thank you NetGalley and Chad Lester for providing an ARC

I am delayed in giving this review as I kept picking up the book and putting it down time and time again. I wanted to persevere but had to give up in the end. I just could not get into the storyline in anyway.. Perhaps the too in-depth storyline din’t help as I kept forgetting the plot. It just was not a read for me.

The book was okay for a sci-fi book. It has sci-fi elements, but it felt more like a drama with a touch of sci-fi. The writing is sometimes choppy and to the point (think like I have a dog. The dog is brown. The dog's name is Beau.), and other times it can be super dry and hard to digest.

The POV changes were nice to have, and clearly marked; it was sometimes hard to keep the book straight as you get every third chapter as someone's story. I had to do a lot of rereading to understand sections and back tracking to ensure I didn't miss anything. This is definitely a book you can NOT stop reading and set down for days - this is a book you need to read back to back days until you're finished. I made the mistake of setting it down for four days and I had to reread most of it to catch up with the comprehension of the book.

Overall it's good; I would recommend the book to others. I will be rereading this later (maybe next year or something?) to see if my rating changes. Part of the reason I only gave it three stars was because of how much I needed to reread to finish the book.

Absolutely original and brilliant! As it progressed, this became a book that was incredibly hard to put down, and I devoured it in a short space of time.
I loved the unusual story; I read a lot of scifi and normally recognise themes etc, but this was a new one for me.
The twists that came near the end were fantastic.

A futuristic story that draws you in. Like all of this genre you have to go with the flow and suspend belief at times. The characters were well drawn and the twists that came later were well concealed.
It did become a little complicated towards the end but stick with it and it all becomes clear.
Not my usual type of read but I enjoyed it - and it did make me think.

Titan’s Tears is a slow-paced and thoughtful novel which tackles questions around scientific and technological advancements and the way that they might negatively impact society.

My primary issue with this book is that the pacing did not work for me; I appreciated that it was taking its time to really show the reader the way that the world had changed however I felt as though there were several chapters that didn’t progress the story. Pacing is a highly subjective thing and readers that like books that linger will likely get a lot out of this book. There is also a lot of moving between various POVs which further slows the story as it takes 4x as long to get to where we are going.

I also felt uncomfortable around the language being used to describe an 8-year-olds eyes but that is likely because of my own biases and experiences.

I think there is definitely a readership for this book but that readership isn’t me, unfortunately.

I will admit that it started a little slow as we were introduced to the characters, and the author began laying the ground work, but once it all started coming together, it packed a punch. This is my first sci-fi novel, and I found it easy to follow. It wasn't overly complicated, and there was so much that kept me interested, especially regarding Sophia's projects.
The way the characters were slowly connected and brought together was written so well, and I became more invested in their story about a third of the way through when it all started coming together. The relationship between Belle and Juno was lovely to see develop as Juno really needed someone to see her for who she was and give her the love she was craving.
I started making some connections together early on in the book, but not all of my suspicions were correct. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and had me second-guessing everything in the best way possible. That plot twist at the end with Sophia's project (trying not to spoil it..), shocked me as I was expecting it to go another way.
While reading this book I imagined how much easier life would be with these technological advancements, especially when it comes to health, but the author did a great job showcasing the negative effects it could have on the world. It left me wondering if I would be willing to pay the price regardless of the consequences.
If there was one criticism, I would say it was the ending. It was a nice ending and it wrapped the story up well, but I feel it went from intense showdown to relaxing farm life very quickly, so it did feel a little underwhelming.
There was a lot of action in this book as well which helped make it more fast-paced . It reminded me of Jurassic Park at the beginning with a couple of similarities with Sophia's projects throughout the book and gave me Terminator vibes after it all went down, but it was very much its own story.

This book had me very intrigued
I love a dystopian novel and this one I found rather fascinating.
The concept of science and AI I was invested from the off.
The chapters are perfect lovely and short for you to just keep reading one more, I did find it a little confusing to start and I feel reading it physically probably would of been a much better experience however, that being said I really enjoyed this book and will most definitely recommend.

Now, this is one Very Interesting book as it manages to take so many of today's discoveries and "over the top companies", move them into the future, and make them all far more dangerous than they already are in 2024!

Just like today's world, where there is "us" and "them", it offers what will be the "us" and "them" in a not too distant future and, speaking for myself, I can see us inching, day by day, towards the dystopian future that Titan's Tears describes.

The picture that Chad Lester paints is vivid enough that it reinforces, far too well, my expectations of the world to come. I know it is supposed to be fiction but, if you have been able to read the likes of Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, you will know that Science Fiction/Fantasy has a tendency to become the world we end up living in.

Thank you Publisher and Netgalley for this advanced copy.
An absolute blast. Loved every parts of this book.

DNF @20%

I just could not get into this. I tried, I really did.

There was so much description and the writing style was just too much. Add to that a really confusing storyline. I was constantly flicking back a few pages.

Too much going on with no context.

A singularity is any unique event; THE SINGULARITY is the near future point where technological progress becomes irreversible, mainly due to AI becoming cleverer than people. This book centres around four people who, in time order, are Seth, Sofia, Belle and Juno.
Seth is a manual worker in a factory, date unspecified but around NOW, when he is replaced by a machine. He becomes a slaughterhouse operative, but eventually a machine replaces him once more. He needs a job to maintain his wife, Anna, who is technically dead and in stasis pending new technology allowing her to be revived and cured. The Singularity arrived but Anna didn’t return.
Sophia is CEO of Ecclestone Evolution, the world’s top tech company, with major interests in AI but also in biological engineering, especially genetics, extra-utero biosynthesis, and the reverse evolution of extinct species. Headquarters is based on one of the many island off the West coast of Alaska, and is surrounded by a temperate rainforest, including a fenced off reserve full of previously extinct species, most of which seem to be vicious carnivores. She has a Nobel Prize for “The Unified Theory” and is a multibillionaire. The company is one of the main reasons why The Singularity happened.
Belle was a foundling left at a Monastery in Alaska. Her memories of childhood and early adulthood are scrambled or absent. The Singularity happened after which she found herself in a backwoods town, with no idea why and developed a small talent as a carer for small children, especially those with physical problems. Unexpectedly, she is offered the post of Nanny to Sophia’s ten-year-old daughter, Juno who lives with her mother inside the Headquarters.
Juno was born around the point where the company’s work has possibly tipped the world from pre- to post- The Singularity. She is a beautiful, precocious genius and polymath, who is blind.
The company has developed a super AI which might become omniscient, and is under threat of takeover, which Sophia is fighting. Juno is under threat of being kidnapped or used as weapon against her mother. Seth, under guidance from an AI, has been trained and targeted to infiltrate the Headquarters (which is an almost impregnable fortress). He doesn’t really know why but has been promised the restoration of Anna as a reward so doesn’t hold back. Belle spends all her time with Juno but realises the dangers and is poised to protect her at all cost.
And so the stage is set.
Unfortunately, this clearcut scenario is very messily handled. Large chunks of the text are expositional, and often borderline polemical. It is clear that the writer has deep concerns about the problems of unfettered progress, and lets his personal political opinions overwhelm the narrative. The writing is rather erratic, feeling like it was written at speed, plot tumbling out and not well edited, with some excessive description and some unnecessary action. The final resolution makes sense, of a sort, but the whole thing could have been much better constructed. I’m giving it 2.5 stars.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

This novel had so much potential, but unfortunately it just fell short in so many areas. Titan's Tears follows the story of Seth and Belle who both find themselves at the headquarters of the world's most innovative scientist, for very different reasons. Mystery, action, mad science, heartbreak and found families, this story seemed to have everything, which was one of its downfalls.

The first half of this novel was a struggle to read for me. It moved extremely slow, the timelines were confusing for the most part and the world building was not written very well. The universe and time period that this story was set in was not described in the most informative way. I found myself with more questions than answers around the science and society that this novel takes place in.

Regardless of the lack of information around the sci-fi aspects, this novel often suffered with providing too much unnecessary information or descriptive text where it was not needed. I found myself bored several times throughout and had to push through to finish. The lengthy chapters on Seth's travels through what can only be described as a mini Jurassic Park were completely unnecessary. These chapters felt as if they were included as filler as they had no real impact on the storyline itself. (Also who dragged Seth and placed him against the tree out of safety? A monkey, a droid?? and how??)

The character development and interactions between characters just did not seem natural or fluid. I felt like the character's were very 2D and it was impossible to find some connection to them. Sophie's character had so much potential and it was just cut short.

The final third of the book was extremely enjoyable and the plot twists genuinely took me by surprise! I loved the concept of this book and was upset that it was executed so poorly. I feel as if there were too many themes and ideas all at play at once which resulted in the reading of this novel to become quite overwhelming and messy.

I wanted to love this story so much, but regardless, I would love to check out more of the author's works!

Thank you so much to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed it. At first I wasn't sure as it could be a bit confusing, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down. With short chapters, it's so easy to say just one more chapter then it's passed midnight.
The story centres around a vast biotech company building AI into every aspect of life and medicine. I definitely recommend it.

Living in the arctic, Belle is cut off from society. Then she gets a mysterious reply to her jo application from the renowned scientist Sophie Eccleston.
She is mysteriously whisked away to the island retreat of the reclusive scientist and receives a request to effectively be a governess for her secret daughter.
Amid this, there is a company man, Silas, a slaughterhouse worker who after experiencing tragedy has become a recluse. He also receives a strange invitation to go to the island. However, his motives are very different.
Titan’s Tears is an enjoyable sci fi thriller set in an indeterminate future. The book spends a good portion of the story setting up the events and getting the characters to the right place for the action to take place.
A lot of readers may find this initial set up to be slow at first. However, I found this to be the most interesting aspect of the book, particularly when we get glimpses of the world in which the book is set. Without incessant description and exposition, Chad Lester gives the impression that the world is quite dystopian with corporations being the main powers. However, this lack of focus on the world gives the impression that the background to which the book is set is not as important as the character and the plot.
I am not going to go into character and plot so much as I think that the best way to experience this book is not knowing much about it as I feel it would lessen the impact. What I will say though is that for me, I found the ‘thriller’ aspect of this book to be quite generic, and I wasn’t really that intrigued by the constant running about etc. However, it was the beginning and the end that I found the most intriguing. As I have said earlier, a lot of readers may find the initial set up quite slow, but I found it quite intriguing. And when it comes to the end, Lester ties it up quite neatly, and whilst I did have some inkling of how some aspects would play out, there were other aspects that completely took me by surprise and ultimately made things a lot clearer.
Speaking of the characters, I did find most of them to be quite generic and a little one dimensional for most of the book, but I could live with that to be honest.
All in all, I ended up enjoying this book and found it to be quite enjoyable.

When Belle gets a job working for CEO and tech giant Sophia Eccleston, she is excited for the new direction in her life, but things on the mysterious island the company is located on, are not what they appear.

Titan’s Tears was a book of two halves for me – the first half is a thriller, there’s 3 central characters – Belle the Nanny, Sophia the Tech CEO and Seth, a factory worker who is slowly being made redundant due to technology. We are introduced to these characters in a way that kept my interest and each character is well defined and is different from the other two. Although Belle and Sophia’s perspectives cross together fairly early on, it’s more difficult to see how Seth fits into the picture until later. I didn’t feel like we learnt anything from Sophia’s narrative chapters, although she was keeping a lot of secrets, they weren’t really revealed until later in other characters chapters, so hers just felt a little dull when no new information was given to the reader, and it was frustratingly clear she was holding things back.

The latter half of the book is more of an action-packed techno-thriller, full of AI and murder-bots and Jurassic Park style once-extinct animals. This part wasn’t as interesting for me and a lot of it felt convenient to the plot, rather than fully formed world-building. The extinct animals park in particular, felt very underused and just thrown in to be able to compare it to Jurassic Park. The world at large was a little confusing, the ‘Modern Era – Post Singularity’ which heads up each chapter is confusing as this never changes, despite a few time-jumps in the narrative.

Overall, Titan’s Tears could do with a bit more of a stiff edit to tie it together to a cohesive story, but I thought there were some great ideas in there. Thank you to NetGalley and the author Chad Lester for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In my view, this book, though slow-paced, is exceptionally well-written. Set in a dystopian future, it follows Sophia, the CEO of an advanced AI and bioengineering company, her 8-year-old daughter Juno, Juno’s nanny, and a grouchy old man named Seth. Despite the different perspectives and ages of the four main characters, they are so well-developed that it’s easy to follow their distinct narratives, even without seeing their names at the beginning of each chapter.
The book, though relatively short, isn’t a particularly easy read. However, it is packed with action, the storyline is straightforward to follow, and the scientific concepts are clearly explained. Although some plot twists were predictable, the final twist genuinely surprised me.
Initially, I doubted how much I would enjoy the book, but it exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend it to fans of sci-fi or dystopian novels

Disclaimer: Thanks to NetGalley & the author Chad Lester for providing a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars

Wow, where do I start? This review will be spoiler-free, so if you want plot details, this one might not be what you're looking for. Here, I'll focus on the book's vibe and my thoughts on certain aspects.

The story is unlike anything I've read before, blending sci-fi themes like AI and technological advances with multiple main characters and mysteries. Initially, the plot feels very disjointed, but it surprisingly comes together very well by the end. The intriguing ideas kept me hooked. And I personally very much love being able to predict some twists while being surprised by others & for me this book kept the perfect balance of that.

However, I didn't vibe too much with the writing. At times, it felt confusing, requiring multiple rereads to grasp the scenes. Another thing is the overuse of coincidences. That really broke my immersion at a certain point as I just became too aware of the frequency. While some can be explained away after finishing the book, I feel like there could have been more creative options.
Additionally, as a huge nerd, inaccuracies in facts bother me to no end. You really had me question my neuro knowledge & not even over advanced stuff but basics like what the cerebrum and cerebellum are important for.

Overall, I recommend the book, though it can be a slog at times. The payoff was worth it for me, and I look forward to seeing the author’s improvements and future ideas!