I was intrigued when I heard “for fans of Blake Crouch and John Marrs”. I don’t read a lot of speculative fiction but I love these authors so why not…

What if any two people could have a baby no matter their age, biological sex, or infertility status? Immediately this premise just gets your mind reeling! Set in the nearish future and told from 3 different POVs this kept me totally engaged. Sci-fi without being too sciencey. Addictive and felt weirdly prescient.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this for this free copy.

Set in the 2050s, "Baby X" takes us into a world where almost all pregnancies start in a lab thanks to IVG (in vitro gametogenesis). Designer babies are the new norm, but there's a dark side. The Vault is notorious for stealing the DNA of famous people and selling it to the highest bidder.

This book has everything you want in a sci-fi thriller: morally grey heroines, total psychopaths, engineered babies, stolen DNA, kidnappings, celebrity stalking, and juicy family secrets. The idea is so fresh and intriguing that I couldn't stop obsessively trying to figure out the next plot twist at every turn.

"Baby X" also dives deep into the ethical concerns about genetic engineering and the use of DNA and technology. The storyline is super captivating, and I'd absolutely recommend it.

Overall, I really liked the book, and the plot twists were mind-blowing!

quite entertaining but easily predictable. cool premise, kind of horrifying with a satisfying resolution, all things considered... though it really could have been much shorter as i guessed rest of the book by the end of part 1 (except maybe for one detail—which gets revealed by part 2). also i didn't care about any of the characters.

I rarely read anything that would be classified as sci-fi, so this book somewhat qualifies as that, although it's more futuristic, with it being our world, just in the future about 50 years. I loved the departure from my typical thriller and romance reads...though I found both of these within this genre as well! There was definitely a romance story arc, as well as an edge-of-your seat race to the end to see what would happen. 

Here's the setup: Can you imagine a world where almost no one gets pregnant the old-fashioned way, but only through a process where they pick a lab-made embryo in which you already know all of the good and bad attributes about them, thus choosing your child before they are even born??

I loved that this story was told from multiple perspectives, and that you were never quite sure the timeline of each of those characters, nor how they all related to each other until the very end. This was a super fun read, that will leave you questioning a lot of things about what you might do in a similar situation, and if the future technology will progress to being able to do some of the things that occur in this book. If you're intrigued at all by all of this, I'd highly recommend picking this one up for its unique plot!

This book was so interesting, I found myself completely sucked in. I loved the three different storylines going on between Quinn, Ember and Lily.

I did figure out pretty early on that there was going to be a big twist going on, and as the book played out I figured out what the twist was going to be but that didn't mean I didn't still appreciate it when it was revealed.

I loved the author's idea on how the future could play out, it all seemed so realistic yet slightly terrifying at the same time.

I look forward to reading more of Kira Peikoff's book and seeing what else she can come up with.

Wildly enjoyable and weirdly touching. Perfectly paced — I couldn’t put it down. While I sort of suspected the ending where it all came together, it was done so well that it still felt meaningful and surprising.

Baby X is a dystopian story set in the near future where babies can be created as long as you have any bit of a person's DNA. There is the dark underground where DNA is sold on the black market-called the Vault. Ember is hired to protect a famous singer's biological material. When she is approached by a woman named Quinn who says that the baby she is carrying has the DNA of the famous singer, the story really gets going. This book shares brings to light how technology evolves and the negative potential of that. It was also a thriller and I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. It kept me entertained but probably will not be one of my top books of the year.

I received an advance copy of this ebook from the publisher for a honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This book has multiple points of views. It is set in the future. It is a very interesting book. I enjoyed Ember’s character. This book is in stores for $30.99 (USD).

I was really looking forward to this read once requested. It is something out of my wheel house but I took a chance and ended up throughly enjoying this futuristic style thriller! It was near enough in the future that it wasn’t too out there and unbelievable for me to grasp and still a little frightening that it actually could happen. I flew through the pages and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen. Lots of twists that I didn’t expect made it a top read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advanced copy.

This was a very unexpected fast read. I got into it fairly quickly. It was nothing like anything I read before, very dystopian and interesting overall.

Baby X is a futuristic thriller/mystery in the style of Black Mirror and a consuming and exiting read.

The speculative developments in this future society are well detailed, playing on ethical concerns in their early emergence today. I loved the creativity in the exploration of the regulations and flow on effects of the new approaches to conception.

The writing was clever, articulate and enthralling. I couldn’t put it down and found the ending so gratifying. The societal dynamics were so well established in this the book that I think there is great potential to explore other stories in this world.

I enjoyed this so much both in audiobook and ebook form. The narration was well dramatised, and contributed to the enthralling nature of the story. I did find it hard at first to tell the voices of the three female leads apart, but as the story progressed the context made this much easier.

I would highly recommend to lovers of Black Mirror, Blake Crouch, or anyone looking for twisty and engaging speculative fiction.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for this audiobook. Opinions expressed are my own.

3 stars for content - somewhat heavy on science, some profanity and sexual content, unnecessary forshadowing
4 stars for the flow and thrill!
It's the near-future in the United States and conceiving children is a precise scientific endeavor. Famous singer Trace Thorne hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to protect him from The Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. But when the couple is confronted by a pregnant woman Quinn who claims to be carrying Thorne's baby, everyone faces upheaval that could cost them their lives. Throw in a desperate want-to-be father and a curious journalist, and readers are left wondering if any of the characters are who they claim to be.
I did skim some of the scientific explanations and pandemic-related content. But the story was definitely exciting. And the end blew me away. Although I guessed at some of the conclusions, I would read more books by this author.

3.5/5

I was drawn to this book from the Blake Crouch comparisons, as he’s one of my favorite authors! Yes, the content is very similar to that of Blake Crouch’s Upgrade, but the writing style could not be compared. While I was hoping for Crouch’s fast paced, action driven, mind bending writing, what I got was more John Marrs writing style of short chapters and multiple points of view, which isn’t as much my preference. Content also similar to John Marrs. So yes, I see the comparison to both authors but it wasn’t exactly what I hoped for going in. But that’s okay!

It was still a twisty and entertaining read. While the twists were clever, they weren’t overly shocking. Enjoyable and bingable but won’t be memorable.

Thank you to Kira Peikoff, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley for the gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

In the world of "Baby X," advances in medicine allow anyone to have a child with anyone as long as they have access to that person's DNA. This has resulted in a huge black market for celebrity DNA, which is why famous singer Thorne hires protagonist Ember as a "bio-security" guard. Then a woman shows up, claiming to be pregnant with Thorne's child, and everything quickly gets out of control.

This book had interesting themes of nature vs nurture, bioethics and eugenics, female autonomy, etc. The world building relied a little too much on telling, but it was nonetheless an interesting dystopia, almost eerily plausible. One of the major twists was on the predictable side, but there were enough other twists and turns to keep me engaged throughout. I agree with other reviewers who compared it to Black Mirror, and would add Orphan Black to that list of dystopias that deal with similar themes (though this one was lighter on the sci-fi, heavier on the thriller elements.) A decent read overall!

BABY X was a joy to read! Which is something coming from me, since I'm not usually a sci-fi reader. What intrigued me was the dystopian aspect of this book, and how sort-of realistic the whole situation seemed to be, in my opinion.
I can easily see all the 'futuristic' aspects of this novel coming true in our real world, in a not-so-distant future.
I personally liked how the author envisions technology (the extinction of cell phones was very amusing, for example) and how terrifying the scientific advances have become within this dystopian story.
I also enjoyed the characters and the plot twists. There are multiple POVs and they are all connected together. Actually, there is a dual timeline, too. But that's a surprise.
I do recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi/dystopian mystery stories.

I enjoyed this audiobook.
It was an interesting take of a speculative thriller. There are several threads and characters to keep track of, which was confusing for me at times.
There was a part towards the end that was just a long list of stats, and after a few I had to skip past them, I felt like they added nothing to the story.

In the near-future in the U.S., anyone can have a child together – all that’s needed is a bit of biological material from two people. This has led to the creation of The Vault, a black market for biomaterial that targets celebrities. Thorne, a famous singer who is tired of being scared of The Vault, hires Ember, a bio-security guard who will do anything to protect her clients. But she has secrets in her past, secrets that may come to light when a pregnant woman shows up claiming to be pregnant with Thorne’s baby.

This is an interesting sci-fi that started quite strong. I liked the exploration of the selection process for embryos, the idea of being a Selected child versus one conceived in the natural way, and the question if knowing your traits may or may not define your personality/life. It’s told from multiple POVs – a bio-security guard, a pregnant woman, and a student. All POVs were strong and offered unique insights into the world.

I’m not entirely sure why, but the fact that it’s set in the very near future lowered my enjoyment some. I prefer my sci-fi to be set further out to make it more believable, whereas this was set in about 25 years when I’ll still be alive (universe willing), which made it hard to immerse myself in the plot. Another part of what brought my rating lower was the reveal at the end. The author used a technique that I personally dislike, so I was a bit disappointed – this certainly won’t be the case for everyone, though.

I did like this book and found it to be entertaining overall. If you’re looking for a light sci-fi read, it’s certainly worth checking out. My thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

A speculative novel set in the near future where babies are conceived in labs and natural conception rare. I enjoyed the twists and turns though some of the science went over my head. The twist toward the end was satisfying and I liked the characters. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

This book had my head spinning and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished. It definitely gave me John Marrs vibes.

Written in the future, when babies are chosen in a lab based on qualities parents desire, you can imagine all of the chaos this may cause.

Stolen cells, unplanned births, scandals and all....it'll leave you wanting more!

I loved the way the future was portrayed in this one. I definitely recommend giving it a shot. You won't regret it!

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for an advanced copy of this fantastic book!

Pub eARC
Baby X was propulsive, engaging, and so well plotted. I was hooked in this thriller from beginning to end. Right away, I liked the three narrators for the main characters because it kept it easy to keep the characters and their story arcs straight. The author knew how to perfectly end a chapter to keep me wanting to listen to this story without stopping. I was surprised by plot elements here and liked how it wrapped up in the end. Well done and I’ll definitely read this author again.