Genre: Cyberpunk
LGBTQ+ Category: Bi, Trans FTM, Trans MTF
Reviewer: Linda, Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
A hundred years in the future, in a world where technologically enhanced bodies are valued above organic ones, Complete Life Management (CLM) is selling perfection in the form of the latest and greatest bionic model, the Apogee. As an elite runner and inadvertent spokesperson for the humanism movement, NYPD Detective Naomi Gate has eschewed vanity upgrades. However, if she hopes to survive in New York City’s fierce criminal Underground and find her brother, she can’t show up in her organic cop body. When Jax Raelyn—CLM’s playboy CEO and Naomi’s boyfriend—offers her an unauthorized body transfer, she accepts in order to save the only family she has left.
Plunging into the Underground’s den of illegal body modifications and bionic hit squads, it turns out to be the first of several body transfers. And as the stakes rise, Naomi fears the price for saving her brother may be the thing she values most—her own humanity.
April McCloud [she/her] is a 1% bionic human who worships her cat and hopes to be reincarnated as a red panda. A librarian, educator, and opinionated black belt, she hails from Rochester, NY and enjoys plotting, be it a book, vacation, or a heist at a GF bakery. She identifies as disabled, LGBTQIA+, neurospicy, and as a struggling practitioner of Zen Buddhism.
The Review
This book takes the reader a hundred years into the future, where people can make improvements to their bodies. Jax Raelyn is the CEO of Complete Life Management, offering upgrades like bionic arms, legs, eyes, and even a full body switch.
His girlfriend, Detective Naomi Gates, is totally against the bionic replacements, feeling that humans are losing their humanity. Only when there is no other choice will she get a replacement, which has happened once. Her leg was injured, and a replacement was the only way it could be saved. She runs in marathons against other women with bionics, and she always wins, another reason she has become a voice for staying as human as possible.
While stopping a killer, she misses a call from her brother Tyler, a troubled soul who she has raised since the death of their mother. When she doesn’t answer, he is convinced that she is finished with him, so he takes what he thinks is his only way out of a very bad situation. He goes for a full body switch putting into one that belonged to someone else. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a bad mistake.
Jax’s company is working on creating Apogees, bodies that are 97% bionic. Of course, Naomi is appalled that the Apogees will be far more machine than human. When her brother’s old body is discovered, she realizes that he has switched and is in trouble. She is determined to find him – not an easy task, since she doesn’t know if he is now in a male or female body.
Finishing a marathon, she comes face to face with Tyler, but he also runs into a bounty hunter, Dane Thayer. Tyler gets away, and Naomi realizes that the only way to locate him is if she switches bodies and goes undercover to the Underground. Her boss refuses to allow it, so she goes to Jax, who performs the switch for her.
She takes Dane, who has had bionic replacements on a major part of his body, along to lead her in the right direction.
As they search for Tyler, they encounter Monks, which leads to trouble. Dane and Naomi are now on the run, and she is seriously injured, so she has to switch again. This time she is a short man, the only body that was available. And finding Tyler has become more difficult, since they are constantly running into people wanting to kill them.
There is so much going on here. McCloud did an amazing job keeping me glued to my chair. Tyler is in a woman’s body, which works great since Tyler has always been trans.
The Switch is full of lies, betrayals, suspense, a must read for sci-fi lovers – or really, for anyone. If I had to use one word to describe this book it would be “WOW!”
Five stars.
The Reviewer
I am an avid reader the mother of 3 sons and grandmother to seven grandchildren. Since retiring I have been doing more reading while volunteering as a CASA worker. CASA is an organization that works with the family court system to ensure that children are in the best living situation. There are way too many children that get overlooked in the foster care system and I visit homes and make visits to the parents. I was born and raised in New York and my husband of 50 years and I live in Upstate New York.
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