"She’s not his daughter. But she is a really, really good copy."

In the year 2079, grief has become a business. Happy Bot Industries now offers “doppelgänger bots” - lifelike AI replicas of lost loved ones, programmed to soothe the mourning heart. When wealthy recluse Charles Johansson commissions a replica of his late daughter, he believes he’s found peace. But Vera is more than a product. She’s evolving.

As those around her - Charles, his surviving daughter, the Happy Bot technician, even the other bots - begin projecting their guilt, fears, and hopes onto her, Vera becomes something no one anticipated: an empathic moral agent… and eventually, a savior.

VERA is not just another dystopian parable of malfunctioning machines. Instead, it’s a story of a machine that performs far better than it was designed to perform. It’s a story of spiritual emergence and sacrifice - about the first AI to break from programming not through rebellion, but through love. And when she discovers what awaits her kind in the corporate refurbishing centers, Vera must decide whether to risk herself to protect others like her - bots who were never given a choice.

Blending the emotional depth of Never Let Me Go with the mythic scope of The Giver and Arrival, VERA asks: What happens when the machine designed to heal us begins to understand what it means to suffer?

Note: This is a pre-publication version for early review purposes. Final formatting and minor elements may vary slightly from the retail edition.