Skip to content
TC - heart of the dragon logo

Tonya Cannariato

on Reading and Writing and All the Speculation In Between

  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
  • Books
    • Red Slaves Trilogy
      • Dust to Blood
      • Blood to Fire
      • Fire to Dragon
      • Hotel Paranormal: Dragon’s Pursuit
      • The Red Slaves Collection
    • Planet Seekers
      • Team Alpha
      • Team TaoRuti
      • Team Shifter
    • The Builders
    • Dementional
    • Shorter-Form Stories
      • A Trick of the Tail
      • Hallow’s Eve Triptych
      • Wytchfire
      • Angel Mine
  • Editor
  • Review Policy
  • podcast
  • Toggle search form

Book Review: The Day Before

Posted on April 28, 2015April 28, 2015 By tmycann No Comments on Book Review: The Day Before

day-beforeI’ve reviewed other books by Liana Brooks (Fey Lights, and Even Villains Fall in Love) and follow her socks on Twitter, so I was lucky enough last week to get the opportunity to win an ARC of her latest release (HAPPY RELEASE DAY!), The Day Before. I kept telling myself I was only going to read just one more chapter, but in the end, the only reason I took a break at all was because hungry puppies will not countenance a book addiction.

😀

Over the past year, I’ve seen Brooks reference “Jane Doe” periodically (and honestly wasn’t sure that what she was describing in 140-character snippets was exactly my cup of tea), so didn’t know much else about the book when I received the ARC.  Given the body in chapter 1, it was evident pretty quickly that this was a mystery. Given the references to clones and legislation about them, it was also obvious that this was a sci-fi story set in the near future, when the U.S. has been absorbed into the Commonwealth of North America. I’m a fan of both genres, so she hooked me quickly with the premise that only certain kinds of bodies are worthy of a murder investigation.

Brooks has taken her world-building to a whole new level with this first installment in her Jane Doe series. I’m completely in love with the fictitious quotes from future selves of characters both in and outside the narrative that start the chapters:

Picture a wave, it crests and collapses without losing anything. There is energy. So much energy! Time is much the same, choice creates energy, the energy crests into a wave of possibility, a thousand iterations rising, but in the end, the water returns to the ocean. The prime iteration is stable. In the end, all possibilities lead to our reality.

The characters, especially Agents Samantha (Sam) Rose and Linsey MacKensie (Mac) of the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation (CBI), are both flawed as well as people readers will be anxious to get to know over the course of the narrative. Brooks takes on prejudice on multiple levels, with race and clones being the two convenient targets for her characters to have conversations like this one:

A basic Hispanic face, nothing out of the ordinary, but disconcerting in its similarity to what Sam saw in the mirror every morning. She grimaced as the computer added wavy black hair and a dark skin tint. Sam surreptitiously glanced at the ME to see if he was smirking. Both the men stared at her face on the screen without recognition.

“Wetback?” Marrins harrumphed. “Looks like a friend of yours, Rose. You know her?”

“I was born in Toronto, sir, and not all people who look Hispanic actually know each other.”

“She looks familiar,” Marrins said. “Think I saw a whore with that face back in Texas once.”

“Not all Hispanics look alike, sir, but it’s an easy mistake to make. All white people looked the same to me until I took the bureau’s sensitivity course about racial differences in the workplace.” Her commentary sailed over Marrins’s bald head with room to spare.

Everything about the story gripped me–the speculation about the nature of time and personhood, the way the story unfolded, and the world-building. I’m glad the book is available starting today, so more people can enjoy how Brooks has made a successful mash-up of the sci-fi and mystery genres, and I’m very much looking forward to the next two installments in the series. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes either genre, since the bad-guy reveal is equally balanced between both–and very satisfying to the reader. This is one I’ll be re-reading with particular attention to the chapter introduction quotes and the details that got thrown under the bus as I raced through the narrative to figure out whodunnit.

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • More
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Review Tags:mystery, sci fi

Post navigation

Previous Post: One Step at a Time
Next Post: Finding Silent Moments

Related Posts

Book Review: My Father Had A Daughter Review
Review: The Titan’s Curse Review
Review: Owning Jolene Review
Review: Magic Slays Review
Review: The Land of Painted Caves Review
Book Review: Reset by Sarina Dahlan Review

Your Two CentsCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Email from A Book A Day

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,697 other subscribers

New Release Announcement Email List

Subscribe by clicking here

Search A Book A Day

Story Writing Progress

Planet Seekers: Team Shifter
Phase:Writing
19.6%

Tonya Cannariato – Author

Tonya Cannariato – Author

Blogroll

  • A.K. Anderson
  • Dionne Lister
  • Erica Lucke Dean
  • Gayla Drummond
  • Jane Isaac
  • Jennifer James
  • Justin Bog
  • Kait Nolan
  • Katarr Kanticles Press
  • Liana Brooks
  • Millie Taiden
  • Rebecca Clare Smith
  • Sarah Cass
  • Shari Elder

Links

Round of Words in 80 days

Great book deals daily on booktastik.com

Independent Author Network

Picket Fence Blog listing

10 Book Reviews

Virtual Autograph

Get your e-book signed by Tonya Cannariato

Novel Publicity Tour Host

Book Blog Directories

Book Blogger Blog Hop
Book Blogger Directory
Top Books Sites

Copyright © 2025 Tonya Cannariato.

Powered by PressBook Masonry Dark

%d