Utopia (Secrets of Aurora Book 1)

This is book one of the Secrets of Aurora series and tells the story of what happens on the day of Aurora’s sixteenth birthday and the days and weeks following. Aurora lives with her mother, who doesn’t seem to love her and has acted very distantly towards her for all of her live and even more so after her father went missing, presumed dead. She lives on the floating city of Utopia, one of four floating cities created by the four highest grossing businessmen and families of Australia, before the cataclysmic events which led to the end of all life on Earth. Enormous floods hit the planet, followed by intense fires, covering the whole world. All Aurora has known is life on the floating city. There are four floating cities, Eden, Arcadia, Utopia and Elysium and the people who live within them are called Elites. Each produces something different, meaning no one city can operate on its own, they are all necessary for them all to prosper. Aurora spent her sixteenth birthday at school, learning about the history of Earth, but being called out at the start of the day for the blood test and injections all sixteen year olds have to have done. She walks home with her best friend Fletcher, who is the son of the leader of the Elites in Utopia. They have been best friends their whole lives and she thought they knew everything about each other, but she is soon to find out that he has been keeping things from her!

She arrives home to find her mother waiting with a cake and a message, but before she can tell Aurora whatever she was going to tell her about her father and the collapse of Earth, the head of the Utopian Guard, Officer Banks breaks his way into their home and asks where Aurora is. When her mother tries to say she isn’t home and refuses to say where she is, the officer orders her shot dead! Aurora had been told to get out, but was still stuck in the bathroom and now had to break her way out, before they could catch her. She has no idea why they want her and especially why they have just killed her mother. The very people that are supposed to keep everyone safe in the city, have just killed her mother in front of her and now are chasing her down! The only place she can think to go, is to Fletcher’s home, but it is well guarded and is the most obvious place that the Guard will go to look for her. She manages to gain Fletcher’s attention at long last and hides in his room for a while, while they come up with a plan. He knows where he can take her and this will be the first shocking secret he has withheld from her all these years.

He takes her to the Undercity, a space below the floating city, where the rebellion and all those who were exiled and supposed to have been sent to Earth, to their deaths, but instead do all the jobs the Elites don’t want to. He takes her to meet his sister Maya, a sister who was never spoken of and who left the Saxby family after disagreeing with their father about how things are run in their society and the secrets that are being kept. Maya had heard that the Elites were to blame for what happened to cause the end of the Earth as it was, but were also controlling the population within the cities, who survived the horrific and extreme weather conditions that caused them to leave in the first place. The main person to have been looking into and finding out many truths about what really happened, was her father Benjamin Adams and it seems this rebel group that Maya is part of, knew him better than her, before he was killed. They have to take off to the rebel safe house, when Officer Banks comes down to the Undercity looking for her.

There, they meet some more of the rebel group, Domino and her boyfriend Leaf, Braven, Vega and Adler. Maya has been taken and they try to come up with a plan to get her out of prison and to also get Aurora out of Utopia and to their fellow rebels in the Eden floating city. But not everything goes as planned, even though some of the group are also Guards and can get through some of the locked areas leading to the prison. They also need to grab a shuttle to get to the next floating city and hope neither team gets caught. One team will go for Maya and the other will go for the shuttle. Both need to succeed, as Aurora is no longer safe on Utopia. She was just a baby when her parents brought her onto the floating city and abandoned Earth, she has known nothing else! She now has to find out what the truth about her existence is and why everyone wants her dead. What is different about her, apart from her red hair, which no one else in Utopia has? Those in power want her silenced, before certain facts can be revealed.

The two teams will not have an easy time of succeeding with their plans, as there are many in power who want them stopped at any cost. The rebels will even find out that the person they held responsible for what was happening in their city, may not have actually been in control like they thought. Their journey to Eden is not an easy one and they end up in the last place they ever expected and now have a fight for survival in very harsh conditions. Lies they have been told all of her life, are slowly being revealed and an item her father left with the rebels, may be the key to it all. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book, as this was just getting to a climax and some big secrets were about to be uncovered. Not everyone will make it and others will not get through unscathed. An interesting futuristic world where Earth had to be abandoned, as extreme conditions overtook the planet and millions died. I received an ARC copy of this book from the author and would recommend it to all. I have freely given my own opinion of this book above.

Wow!!! I couldn’t stop reading this book! So entertaining. I can’t wait to read the second book. 5 stars from me! I really loved if. Easy to read and I really enjoyed it.

Wow. What a powerful story. A gripping tale of a quest to discover the truth after detestation on Earth created 4 floating communities. Full of passion and heartache and intrigue and self discovery.
Such a page turner that will leave you wanting more.

Brilliantly written.

Wow this read really grabs you, it is fantastically written. Sixteen yr old Auroras life suddenly changes, people are after her so she has to flee and figure out was is going on with her friends Fletcher and other friends. This takes you into a whole different world that is full of twists and turns. And lots of surprises. Once I started this read I couldn’t put it down. This is one of the best books I have read lately. The Author really brings out the Characters so you feel like you right there with them. And you can vividly see the scenes the way they are written. I definitely recommend this read.
Shauna Joesten