Reclaimed

RECLAIMED by Madeleine Roux is a futuristic, sci-fi, dystopian story line focusing on three humans who have suffered extraordinary personal tragedies, and have been offered a once in a lifetime chance to erase the specific memories from their pasts. Told from several third person perspectives including Senna, Zurri and Han, RECLAIMED is set in the middle of the twenty-third century, when space travel, AI servitors, VIT, and VR are the norm. Wealthy entrepreneur and self-proclaimed genius Paxton Dunn has set up an experimental lab, at the Ganymede compound, on one of the moons of Jupiter, and has contacted our three leading characters for his inaugural test subjects and specific memory erasure. All three subjects have suffered through horrific experiences, and Paxton has targeted each for who they are, and what they know but the ‘treatment’ sessions begin to reveal that something is not quite right with Paxton and his crew, and the subjects begin to lose a little more of themselves with each progressive session. Senna is a young woman who has spent most of her life controlled by a charismatic leader, a leader who dominated and restricted every aspect of her life but like many of his type, the need for power and control outweighed the safety of his followers, and in the end Senna is the only one to survive. Loneliness and innocence ooze through her broken façade. Zurri is a super model with an ego to match but a stalker demanded Zurri’s attention. A televised promotion for Zurri’s new line of cosmetics ensured the world watched as her stalker appealed his final challenge. No amount of facial cream will heal the pain or memories of what happened and why. Han is a fourteen year old, computer IT wizard, but he too, lost everything to a man man whose need to control destroyed many lives. On the fast track to genius, Han may become Paxton’s protégé, but a protégé that is about to take down a man he once considered his hero. Madeleine Roux pulls the reader into a story of what ifs and hows? What if someone or something could erase the bad memories leaving only the good ones intact? …but therein lies the problem when memories are erased, what is left behind is a gaping ‘black hole’ of nothing, and in its’ place is darkness and pain. As our three ‘test subjects’ begin to breakdown both physically and emotionally, each will come to realize that their lives are no longer under their control. RECLAIMED is a thought-provoking and aptly cautionary tale of desperation and loneliness, power and obsession, arrogance and egomania, suffering and pain. The premise is twisted and haunting, complex yet equally easy to read.