Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me. I really struggled with the authors writing style, specifically the dialogue and found it really unrealistic. The story sounds like it could be really intriguing, but I had to DNF.

This book was a struggle for me to get into, not sure if it was my mind set or the time at which I was reading it. Overall, it was not bad but not impressionable either.

I am excited to check out the new version. I had a hard time getting into this book and will request the new version from my library

I tried starting this book a few times but quickly I realised it just wasn't for me. This has all the markings of a potentially great book, and the concept and world were both really intriguing to me. But the execution just really didn't do it for me. The dialogue felt a bit choppy and while reading I felt like it had been going on forever. I wish I'd have liked this because it seems like something I'd really love.

I rarely reread books. Don't have a lot of time to read, so I enjoy reading new adventures with new characters. Annnnd I NEVER reread a book that I found okay the first time. But when the publisher contacted me to know what I didn't like in the book, and later to ask me to review it again because they worked hard to improve it, I wanted to reread it. Because the premise was good and interesting, and the book was promising. It was just all over the place.

Well... This second version is much better. The efforts showed.

I received a free ARC of the book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley and to Ruby & Topaz Publishing for the opportunity.

This is Aubrey Hadley’s first published book. I was attracted initially by the plot-line of a sickness sweeping the earth. I don’t think I’m alone in looking for fiction that might hold a mirror to my own thoughts and feelings right now. Sometimes a fictional resolution can give us a spark of hope in the real world.

Harper is a 17 year old girl who lives with her older brother, younger sister and abusive mother. Though homeschooled she is intelligent with vast knowledge of science and astronomy. After seeing a glowing creature, and being held in quarantine for a strange sleeping sickness sweeping her neighbourhood, Harper is abducted by aliens. She is taken to their base where she must ally with other abductees whilst plotting how to get out, taking with her, an alien scientist who may know how to combat the sickness before humans are wiped out and all the abductees are permanently removed from earth.

Hadley’s descriptions alien culture, early in the book, are detailed and fascinating. For sci-fi fans who want to delve into visions of other worlds, this is exactly what you want. However, the longer the book goes on, the less polished it seems and the more it feels like a hurried attempt to just finish the plot. There are no love relationships in the book. A lack of romance in a book isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not everyone wants to read a story that revolves around a teen relationship. In fact Harper has the potential for development an asexual or non-binary character that could be really interesting. This though, felt more like a book devoid of strong emotion altogether. Harper’s appearance is changed early on but after an instant reaction she never seems bothered again. When she finally reaches her brother, he is in a terrible condition but again after an initial shock she doesn’t seem to care too much. The tension that should be building towards the end of the book, like Harper’s own emotions, is muted. To cap it all, the final twist didn’t make sense to me. To be honest, I felt like my interest level finally just fell through a plot hole in the book.

If you are looking for a YA romance, this book won’t interest you. However, if you are looking for an apocalyptic sci-fi story to while away the time, then you should give this book a go, and in a world where people really are dying every day from a suddenly threatening virus, this book might just speak to you.

DISCLAIMER: I will say from the get go, from me reading it at the time I did, there had been an update on the book mid way through when I started reading, so I didn't read the most current version of the book that was available as of the 30th of March. I read the version previous to this. I hadn't realised there was an update. My review is on that version, not the most current, as of writing this in April.

When I initially requested this book, I saw the cover and fell in love with it and the synopsis sounded right up my alley. However, sadly the book fell really short for me, and just didn’t work for me at all. The slow pace, I can normally deal with, but this book was on another level of slowness. I think the long length of this book mixed with the slow pace of it, minus the last 15% really caused me to not care about this book at all, especially as I never connected with Harper as a character. I found myself getting slowly getting more and more annoyed with her. I truly expected myself to love a book about aliens and humans that aren’t truly humans. I will be forever sad that this book just didn’t work for me.

Harper is your typical YA girl character that ~isn’t a normal girl~ but thinks she’s incredibly plain and boring. I found her to be a quite irritating character. She was someone that was constantly ignoring her family members, then when she realised that she was going to be apart from them forever, she became emotional about this, and would also continue with participating in traditions and aspects of the Hybrid world that went against her morals. Her personality was incredibly flat as she just passively let her live change at the hands of these aliens.

I really struggled with the overwhelming amount of information about the Hybrid world. I understood it initially, but if I was to put the book down for over a day, I completely forgot most things and I would have to remind myself what was happening again. There was a good amount of terminology that I wasn’t used to in regard to how the Hybrids live and do their daily activities on the Base of Ki. I did enjoy the commentary about how the aliens would talk about the negative actions of the humans on Earth and towards each other. I found this to be incredibly interesting, especially with this being spoken about in a young adult book. I did enjoy that aspect.

Thank you very much to Ruby & Topaz Publishing for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

An ARC was provided to me for free by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In present-day America, a disease seems to be sweeping the nation. People seem to fall asleep and then they just die. On the night the disease comes back, seventeen-year-old Harper witnesses some glowing sort of creature. As her small town falls under quarantine, she begins to realize there might be something more to the outbreak.

Full confession: I made it 25%. To be fair, I did fly through that 25% but most of it was through skimming. There is a lot of unnecessary filler in this book: conversations with Harper's friends and family that go nowhere, soccer games, etc. I was shocked to learn that the book is a whopping 620 pages long. So much of this could be have eliminated for better pacing.

Harper, unfortunately, does not make for a compelling or likeable narrator. She is 17 but acts like she's 12. When her mother tells Harper and her siblings that the disease is back and that they must stay indoors and away from other people to avoid contamination, Harper whines about how unfair life is.

Nothing in this book really worked for me. It starts with an explosive scene of action of Harper seeming to battle for her life, but then immediately reverses to earlier that same day to give context - a scene that was more boring, and obviously the reason the author chose to start the book with the action scene. But nothing else in the story hits that same level of tension and action, so it feels like a cheap way to hook the audience in.

What an incredible all consuming sci fi novel of suspense and discovery! #glowbook1potency started out slow but was completely engaging due to the point of view of Harper, the teen girl who is the focal point of the story. The descriptions of the aliens and alien tech are fully developed and very imaginative but completely believable. The ending feels a little abrupt but it is only the beginning of the saga and now comes the time of waiting for the second volume to come out! Thanks to #netgalley and the publisher for this ebook to read and review.

This was a real drag.
I kept reading purely because I was expecting something exciting to happen.
Unfortunately it never did.
All the characters lacked depth and just felt like they had been thrown together with no emotional interaction.
Poor.

Seventeen-year-old Harper, her family, and friends are living in fear of catching the Maasai Mara Sleeping Syndrome which has recently returned. People go to sleep and never wake up. Is it a pandemic or does the glowing figure that Harper sees in the desert outskirts of her neighbourhood have something to do with it?

Reading this during the time of Covid-19 was quite poignant. I read the updated version and I rather enjoyed it. At first, I thought it was going to be one of the usual 'teenage girl is amazingly gifted but doesn't know it and will save the world' but it turns out to be so much more. The main character actually turns out to not be a bratty know-it-all and is a sympathetic character. The world-building was detailed but not overwhelmingly so. I found myself reading it faster and faster to find out what happens and I would definitely read a sequel if there is one.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, Ruby & Topaz Publishing, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Glow Book I, Potency by Aubrey Hadley is a YA book about a mysterious sleeping syndrome called The Maasai Mara that has been spreading around the world.

The main character Harper Loomis, an average teen from Reno, Nevada who was trapped in her home alone when the shutdown hit her town. When her neighbors started dying from the syndrome, Harper's fight began to save humanity in a survival tale that helped her discover who she is.

The seventeen years old lived through the battle for her life, she got whisked off in the hand of Aliens and taken to the Ancients' military base, where she learned her real identity which is, she is a hybrid made from human and Ancient DNA. Harper met two friends in the camp like her, Jackeline, and Adam and that's when they started planning their escape.

This book is so long with a cliffhanger ending leaving us with plot twists, friendship, and many other things. A light read that I for sure needed at this time.

I appreciated being sent an advanced copy of this book, there's a lot of things were left unanswered, I'm sure it would be explained in the next book. I'm interested to see where the rest of the story takes us.

Happy reading.

I absolutely loved this book! Harper, just your average teenage girl, ends up in a race against time to save her life and ultimately the human race.
Aubrey Hadley does an incredible job at world creation, with an excellent eye for detail.
A page-turner with a pace that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Impossible to put down!

The first third of this book rates a definite 5 star. It had it all; a likeable young girl, Harper, doing her best to roll with the hard life she was given in Reno, NV. There is action, suspense, a genial circle of friends, a beloved younger sister and older brother, mysterious glowing figures and a 'sleeping sickness' that is killing humanity. My only complaint in this section is that the author occasionally makes our heroine a bit of a scaredy cat. She's afraid to be in the house by herself, rushes to hide in her closet at the first strange sound in the house, and in general comes across as immature for her age (17).

The second third slows things down immensely and rates only 3 stars from me. Our reluctant hero is captured by the aliens (called Ancients) causing the sleeping sickness, around the same time she suspects she has the ability to run really, really, REALLY fast. This section could have been so much better that it was. Thrown into a jail cell, she meets her first alien (who has also been imprisoned). But after only one night, Harper is moved to nicer quarters and thrown in with the others like her: half-breeds. The alien prisoner seemed so interesting, but alas, the character is never fully fleshed out. We are treated to long detailed descriptions of Harpers room, the hallway, the meeting room, the type of food aliens eat, how they eat, more descriptions of different hallways and rooms. Very little happens beyond what you'd expect in the daily life of someone with a boring job. Then they announce the Agility Games, where chosen half-breeds will compete against aliens. The head of the half-breeds suspects Harpers 'quick' power and tries blackmailing her into competing so they will win. Sounds exciting?! Could have been, except that storyline fizzles out when Harper pretends to be bad at agility and the evil head of her group basically says "oh, well ok" and that's the end of that plotline. We are treated to several more chapters describing their mundane jobs of cleaning, testing the blood of aliens returning from missions on earth, and descriptions of the many different outfits they wear for the different jobs. Zzzzzzz.

The final third of the book only barely redeems itself with three and a half stars when Harper and some friends escape and go back to Reno, NV. The big escape, however, is mostly uneventful; they get away pretty easily. After landing safely back in the desert outside Reno, they meet up with, well, no spoilers, but there are just a few very mild plot twists that most readers over the age of 12 will have easily figured out in advance. And the cliff hanger ending is more like the gentle slope of a mound of dirt.

Did I get invested enough to look forward to the next installment? Not really. But I'm over 12.

"The Sleeping Syndrome has returned after a six-month hiatus. This time, it's popped up in New York, and it's wiped out an entire homeless shelter. The same night of the outbreak - thousands of miles away - Harper, a seventeen-year-old girl, finds herself face-to-face with a glowing figure in the desert outskirts of her neighborhood. As the world goes on high-alert from the Syndrome, Harper is kidnapped and taken to the Base of Ki, a massive dome with a sheening white city and fantastic technology...built by beings from another solar system. There, she must form cross-species alliances to save her friends, family, and the human race before she loses all chance of returning to Earth."

It's finally out!

I was pretty excited for this book because aliens!!!, scifi, alternate worlds!!!! But man oh man!! Was I bored out of my mind.!!
The book started strongly with Harper in Earth and her messed up home situation. But just as I was getting attached to the characters the setting changes and then the info dump begins!! This book could easily have been half its size if the info overload had been properly edited.
I am not saying it was a bad book but just not for me. If you are someone who loved detailed explanations in scifi novels, you would love this but this one was a miss for me.

Glow, by Aubrey Hadley, is a sci-fi story set in Nevada. The main character is Harper, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives under the constant watch of her mother, along with her younger sister, Olivia and older brother, Brett. Their city is currently under threat from the Sleeping Syndrome, a disease which effectively euthanises its victims and has already wiped out thousands of people. As a result, Harper’s mother is incredibly restrictive of Harper’s freedom, limiting the time she is able to spend with her friends and expecting her to spend all her time looking after Olivia.

The story follows Harper as she battles against her mother’s restrictive and manipulative behaviour, using her fear of the Sleeping Syndrome as an excuse to place extreme limitations on Harper’s life. To make matters worse, Brett is excused from such restrictions and Harper cannot understand why her brother is allowed so much more freedom than she is. She makes a pact with Olivia that they will both leave the family home when they are old enough, and make reference to the future they want to build throughout the story.

However, before this happens, Harper is kidnapped by an alien species who are divided into two groups; Ancients and Hybrids. Olivia and her mother have vanished, but Brett has been enlisted as a guard to keep people inside their homes to protect them from the Sleeping Syndrome. But the aliens reveal that there is more to Harper’s identity than she realised and a reason why her mother treats her with disdain. Harper is part of an experiment, and the Sleeping Syndrome has been a way for both the Ancients and Hybrids to wipe out the human race for what they feel is the good of Earth. The rest of the story follows Harper as she undergoes a complete transformation and forms new friendships with her own species who assist her in plotting her escape.

The cover and genre of this story hooked me. The beginning starts out as a fun, engaging read which many who have experienced an oppressive upbringing will find relatable. I really liked the way that the sci-fi elements were weaved into the story and kept the plot realistic. I really like Harper’s character and I could relate to her fear of transitioning from a life of stability to one of chaos and uncertainty. A personal preference of mine is that a sci-fi story allows characters to retain some of their humanity amidst the world that the author has created. In my opinion, Hadley does that really well.

However, there were parts of the story which didn’t require as much information as Hadley has included. In my opinion, the story felt a little rushed towards the end and it would have been nice to have less information which went into more detail. I am a reader who immerses themselves in every scene and at times, the story contained too much information to allow me to become absorbed in the events and the characters involved.

But on the whole, this is a good sci-fi story and I would recommend it to any YA readers who are looking for sci-fi which is digestible and easy to follow. As this book is part of a series, I am intrigued to see where Hadley takes Harper on her adventure next.

I'm really conflicted on this book. It was action-packed for sure. But it was just one of those books I couldn't fully immerse myself in. So much that happened was a little far-reaching, even for me, and I felt such a strong disconnect from the story. I couldn't connect with the characters, so it all dragged a bit for me.

Not my cup of tea, but it sounded so promising.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

Potency is Book 1 in the Glow series. It’s a science fiction/dystopian novel where a strange sleeping sickness spreads through America and takes lives of the American people. In this book we follow Harper a teenager that is home schooled and has to be quarantined by her mother as the sickness spreads.

What drew me to this book was the front cover and the intriguing description that was provided on NetGalley. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book.

The plot was interesting with lots going, which I liked but at the same made things a little confusing. My favourite thing about the book was the fact that the plot had little to no romance in the plot. This is one of the things I struggle with in YA books, as most of the time this is what the book ends up concentrating on and misses the point of the whole book.

Although the author has done a great job in creating an interesting imaginary world, with lots of details I did find the book to be a little too long, especially as there isn’t any real action. Also, the pacing was a little off for me, it was too up and down. There were sections where my concentration wavered and I didn’t really care for what was happening.

The characters on the other hand were interesting. I really liked Harper’s character she was full curiosity at the same time full of self-doubts, which made curiosity, her self-doubts which made her character feel realistic and believable.

All that being said overall it wasn’t a bad read and I’m happy to give it a solid 3, and I would look into see how the series progresses.