Leap by OC Heaton | Zooloo's Book Tours

 Hello Everyone, 

Here we are from beyond the blogesphere to bring you another review for the wonderful Zooloo's Book Tours.

Today I am going to talk about OC Heaton's new book, LEAP.

But first, let's find out what it's all about eh?

    ABOUT THE BOOK

Three broken people.

Two centuries of emissions.

One last chance to reverse global warming…

Uma Jacobsdottir, eco activist and daughter of famed quantum scientist Jakob Arnasson, dreams of reversing global warming.

From his London HQ, Ethan Rae is looking to cement his position as Britain’s youngest tech billionaire as he recovers from the trauma of his parents’ death.

After a chance meeting Uma teams up with Ethan to launch her father’s greatest invention - LEAP, a mysterious device that could replace all transportation, transform manufacturing and revolutionise food production.

But playboy CEO, Samuel Reynolds III has other ideas. Considered a failure by his patriarchal father he needs LEAP to save his family’s airline, once the biggest in the US but now facing bankruptcy in the wake of 911.

As the big day approaches, a terrible accident involving LEAP rips Uma and Ethan’s plans apart and they suddenly find themselves battling not only Reynolds but each other in the race to launch LEAP onto an unsuspecting world.

From the frozen wastelands of Iceland to the leafy suburbs of London and in the shadow of the Twin Towers, all three will stop at nothing to control the greatest invention in the history of mankind.

Ethan Rae is an investor, whose specialisation is tech. He is able to broker a deal for anything. One day, whilst attending an innovation awards presentation, he is approached by Uma Jacobsdottir. After finding out her father is a well known environmentalist, he manages to broker a deal to see Uma’s fathers private work. This will change his life forever, and possibly that of all mankind as Uma shows him something that he had thought was science fiction.

From the moment we start the book, OC Heaton thrusts us straight into the story, opening it with the murder of two journalists who have received a private demonstration of the LEAP technology, the unbelievable advancement that will solve all the worlds problems in one fell swoop. However, others are out to get the technology and use it for themselves.

In LEAP, OC Heaton has taken the stuff of science fiction and created a believable method in which something that feels so outlandish could actually be possible. In the midst of this he has imagined a corporate and personal struggle for the control of the technology.

LEAPS pacing is just about perfect, as the first part of the book throws us straight into the world that OC Heaton has created, but then slows down to build the premise and the world. However, when we get to the second act of the piece, the pace picks back up to dash at breakneck speed right through to the end.

One of the good things about LEAP is OC Heaton’s ability to merge the outlandish with the realistic so that they become both believable and possible. Never once does it seem that teleportation seems to be outside of our grasp and he gives a well researched and solid background to the premise.

The book itself is full of twists and turns and deals with equally human difficulties as well as seemingly outlandish ones. Throughout the story, there are various aspects of both science fact and science fiction that are seamlessly integrated into the narrative and make everything seem possible.

The only little niggle that I have is that I felt that some of the characters were not as well developed as I would have liked, particularly some of the side characters, such as Grond, who I felt was a bit stereotypical. However, this did not spoil the plot or the rest of the story.

The plot itself is very transglobal and flits from one setting to the other very quickly, which I think added to the story as a whole, particularly when the story is set in Iceland, which OC Heaton describes with such enthusiasm that you cannot help but want to visit the place. I think that this setting on the whole made the book stand out as if it had been primarily set in the US or the UK, I think it would have hampered the story a little and OC Heaton manages to stay away from this premise and gives me somewhere that I would love to visit.

If you fancy a fast moving thriller, then I think LEAP would be right up your street. It’s pacy, it’s twisty and turny and the stakes are so damned high that you keep turning the pages to see what is going to happen next.

NOW A BIT ABOUT THE AUTHOR.....

I write what I love to read - big issue thrillers that are super well researched inside a complex plot full of twists and turns.

When I sit down to write a book, I have three non negotiable rules:

1. It needs to concern a current or recent real world issue that I can deeply research (I love research!) and weave my fictional story into. Hopefully, so tightly that you struggle to spot where one stops and the other starts.

2. It has to have a complex plot full of twists and turns that’ll leave you guessing right until the end.

3. It must contain grey characters, even the good guys. This makes sense to me. Firstly as a reader I hate stereotypical/one dimensional characters and secondly, grey is real-life, right?

The result of the above is The Race Is On Series, an idea I had on a trip to Iceland. The first in the series is called LEAP, which tells the tale of a device which has the power to halt global warming. Told you I go for big issues! The ensuing race to control the power of this machine will continue throughout the sequel to LEAP which I’m well on my way to completing. It's called Green Ray and will be published in the Autumn of 2022.

Just like LEAP, the 2nd book weaves fact with fiction and encompasses events such as the 2009 global financial meltdown, Al Qaeda, a new US President and a cornered CIA; another delightful concoction around which I have constructed another tall, but hopefully credible, tale. Watch this space!

I live in Leeds, UK with the love of my life and our two daughters. It rains a lot in Leeds but that works out well for me - loads of time for research and of course writing