Shadow State by Elyse Brayden (review)

Brynn’s mother’s lab has developed a drug that promises relief from the symptoms of PTSD by putting people in a suggestive state so that their traumatic memories can be rewritten. Shortly before its launch to the public, however, Brynn starts receiving threatening text messages, indicating that crucial findings regarding the drug’s effects on teen subjects have been covered up and that a terrorist act has been planned for the launch. As she struggles to make sense of the threats and how she is implicated in them, Brynn has flashbacks revealing that her own memories may have been tampered with, leaving her with no one to trust, not even herself. Topical on several fronts, this medical thriller is cleverly plotted even if some of its contrivances fall apart under scrutiny. Brynn’s depression following an abusive relationship forms an important part of the plot, but her isolation in its aftermath, necessary for the final twist to be credible, is overly convenient. Despite the flaws, however, the idea in play here of a pharmaceutical panacea with disturbing side effects and potential for political manipulation, couched in a suspenseful series of events, makes for a believable cautionary tale.