I would like to thank Anne from Random Things Tours and Orenda for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for affair and honest review

Publisher – Orenda

Published – 17/2

Price – £8.99 paperback £4.79 Kindle eBook

A longed-for baby
An unthinkable decision
A deadly mistake

In an all-too-possible near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure that their babies are perfect … altering genes that may cause illness, and more…

Susan has been trying for a baby for years, and when an impulsive one-night stand makes her dream come true, she’ll do anything to keep her daughter and ensure her husband doesn’t find out … including the unthinkable. She believes her secret is safe. For now.

But as governments embark on a perilous genetic arms race and children around the globe start experiencing a host of distressing symptoms – even taking their own lives – something truly horrendous is unleashed. Because those children have only one thing in common, and people are starting to ask questions…

The ethics of science is a foundation of SF right there from Mary Shelley all the ay to today. Have we considered the consequences of doing things that no one once imagined where possible? In the twenty first century genetic engineering will become a huge ethical question for this century as the building blocks of humanity get explored. In Eve Smith’s SF thriller Off Target we get a tale of deceptions, lies and questionable decisions that have huge ramifications for one family but unfortunately I didn’t find the story really successfully explore the issues at stake.

Susan and Steve have been trying for many years to have a baby naturally and with no success, Steve is very reluctant to explore the IVF route and after one drunken night Susan has a one-night stand with a co-worker and discovers she is pregnant. A DNA test confirms that Steve is the father. Susan and her best friend agree to try a radical solution; to use a cutting edge east European gene-splicing firm that will edit the foetus’ DNA to replicate Steve’s and apparently all goes well they even make some modifications to help prevent future health issues. Then 11 years later we meet the happy couple, and their daughter Zurel is not talking anymore. The world is getting reports of increasing issues with young children’s health and there appears to be a link to gene editing. How much longer can this secret last?

This is a novel of two halves. On the thriller side this tale of a single error of judgement one night that overturns a family is well designed. As Susan tells her story we feel her desire to be a mother, the pressure of each negative test and the strain on a couple who look to be in love. While I never really bought that Susan would then go out and have a one night stand the feelings of her surprise, despair and worry over what would happen next are in that first half of the novel quite compelling. We understand why she takes such a dangerous choice of action to keep her family together and keep a secret for 11 years.

I unfortunately found the second half of the novel where the speculative SF elements really didn’t gel for me. The message of the book is that designer babies where children can be change before birth to have greater strength, memory or even address potential mental health issue could lead to further issues as genetic make-up is changed. This is a valid concern but I’ve two major issues with the approach taken in the book. Smith tries to make a difference between conditions – to edit out Huntington’s may be ok but a suspect gene for alcohol dependency would probably not be. What I never grasped from the book was how we can know the former is also not going to lead to issues either as that too is frontier science. Zurel is changed for her father’s DNA (and that I admit did stretch my sense of belief in a fairly low tech world that is portrayed) conveniently her issues are shown to be psychological trauma more than her genes. Smith seemed reluctant to actually explore the issues in more detail head on they surround Susan and her family but for me did not touch them in any meaningful way bar from being wary of strange east european businessmen promising the world for a price. I think it would have been braver for Susan to actually really be shown as a person very much keen for designer babies to order rather than an unfortunate desperate woman making a single unwise choice and not knowing what would happens.

I had issues with the convenience of plot threads that happened but were all superficially explored. Antiabortion groups merging with anti-gene editing could have been a really interesting angle but is is brushed over how the group work and suddenly used to create a life-or-death situation for one character. Zurel for an eleven-year-old who has become mute but her diary and private thoughts sound like a mature adult and this is never explained in any detail bar that she reads a lot. Right at the end we get to think well Susan made mistakes but so did her husband. It just feels very thin on any actual plot and while superficially with short chapters creating lots of pace, but I found it glossed over any explanation for why things happen. Would the world really erupt with anger in 24 hours to discover a child in school had their genome edited and yet no strange powers. Reasons to be feared or discussed actually occur?

Overall, this book was a disappointment. An interesting thriller that gets lost in SF and I found its approach scattergun and poorly explored. Not for me