Assured Destruction Book Review

You can learn a lot about someone looking through their hard drive...

Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard drives she scours to create the online identities she calls the Shadownet.

Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They're stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose their livelihood.

When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

My Review

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.  Janus Rose is a brilliant computer wizard.  She and her mom run Assured Destruction, a computer recycling business.  What her mother doesn’t know is that she’s taken hard drives of some of her friends recycled computer and created her very own network called Shadownet.  Suddenly, her real friends begin getting attacked online with information that could only be found on the computers sent in to be recycled.  Janus stops at nothing to find out who is behind it, save the business, and clear her name.  

This was a fun read for me, probably because I’m a computer geek as well.  Janus’ loneliness led her to do something risky yet very cool.  I loved that she was written as a smart, strong, and very stubborn female character.  There was lots of action, and the ending was quite a surprise.  This was a fantastic mystery and I can’t wait to see what Mr. Stewart has for us next!

About the Author

After crewing ships in the Antarctic and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture capital, Michael anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of kids. Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala, the ruins of Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving whatever cave or ocean reef will have him. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and SF Canada, and the author of the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young adults.

Connect with Michael: 

 Website | Twitter | Facebook