CSSF Blog Tour - The Enclave

The Enclave
By Karen Hancock
Published at Bethany House

About the book
When Lacey McHenry accepts a prestigious research fellowship at the world-renowned Kendall-Jakes Longevity Institute, she sees it as a new start on life. But when a disturbing late-night encounter with a bizarre intruder leads to a cover-up by Institute authorities, she soon realizes all isn't as it seems.

Caught in an elaborate game of deception and seduction, her only ally seems to be the brilliant but absent-minded geneticist, Cameron Reinhardt. A favorite of the Institute's charismatic director, Cameron, too, came to K-J hoping to escape his past. But the more he learns about Lacey's attacker, the more he fears that the past still pursues him.

Not certain they can trust each other, Cameron and Lacey reluctantly work together to uncover the shocking secrets that lurk behind the Institute's respectable façade—secrets that turn out to be bigger, stranger, and far more dangerous than either of them could have imagined.

Who is Karen Hancock?
Karen Hancock has won Christy Awards for each of her first four novels--Arena and the first three books in the Legends of the Guardian-King series, The Light of Eidon, The Shadow Within, and Shadow over Kiriath. She graduated from the University of Arizona with bachelor's degrees in biology and wildlife biology. Along with writing, she is a semi-professional watercolorist and has exhibited her work in a number of national juried shows. She and her family reside in Arizona.

For discussion and further information, Karen invites you to visit her Web site at http://www.kmhancock.com/.

My Thoughts
Since the 90s we have heard many times about cloning and the reasons why this is a scientific advancement. But when you think about it, the people who are doing cloning – either with animals or even with humans – are playing God in a way. How ethical is it to clone animals or humans? It doesn’t feel right to me. However, I think the author of The Enclave has used this idea of cloning with incorporating Christian characters in an interesting way.

This book is packed with suspense. It will keep you wanting to read more at each turning page. The author took the time to describe every scene at the point that I seriously think that it would be a wonderful movie. There are so many details that I wouldn’t be surprised that someday we would see this story on the big screen.

Honestly, reading the book made me think a lot about the movie The Island. In a similar way, the plot is about people living in a special environment awaiting their possibility of being sent to The Island which is almost like a lottery for them. One of them discovers that in reality they are clones and that they exists only because someone wealthy sponsored one of them to eventually be used if that sponsor would be in need of organs or something else. I won’t give out the plot but the movie is quite interesting.

While reading this book, you can also see the tactics of a leader to manipulate and control the people under him. He also modified various aspects of the Bible to create a New Eden, New Babylon and so on. In a similar way, we need to remind ourselves that some leaders do manipulate the information or modify it so that their followers believe them. It is all part of a sect. I tip my hat to the author for being thorough in her writing with the Truth and with her imagination in creating such a wonderful environment for the story. You can see she has thought a lot about all the details for the various places presented in The Enclave. It was easy to imagine the various places where the characters where living, working and entertaining themselves.

I must admit that I am not done reading this book. But I plan to finish it and discover what the end of the story will be. I am quite enjoying it and find it a good read for our vacation time. I also know that my husband would love to read it too and I strongly recommended it to him. He just loves this kind of plot in a book. Anyone who loves science fiction or futuristic kind of story would love it.

The Enclave is available everywhere, especially at amazon.com, amazon.ca and indigo.ca.

UPDATE: It is June 20th, 2009 and 7pm EST. I have just finished to read The Enclave. The end of the book is packed with events that will blow you mind. And questions arise... What will happen to the children Zowan and Terra? And what will Cam and Lacey do now? Will there be persecution against the leaders? Will the main leader evade justice? Where did he go? Is the cover up work or will truth be stronger than the lies? Honestly, I fell as though I am left wanting more. Does the author plan to write a sequel? I sure hope and pray that she does. This is definetively a hot subject to write about. Again, I reinstate the fact that this story would be great on the big screen. If someday there is a movie made about this novel, you can be sure that I will be one of the first ones to go see it!

Here's the links of the other participants on the tour. Take the time to read what they think of the book.

Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams
Dona Watson