Always Adam by Mark Brumby – A @damppebbles Review Tour – #AlwaysAdam @brumbymark @BoomslangBooks #DamppebblesBlogTours

• Title: Always Adam
• Author: Mark Brumby
• Publisher: Boomslang Books on November 30, 2020
• Genre: Thriller
• Pages: 276
• Format: digital ARC
• Rating: 4/5

Many thanks to Emma at Damppebbles Blog Tours, Mark Brumby, and Boomslang Books for providing me with an ARC copy of Always Adam in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger Warnings: Graphic Violence

Pre-Order Now: Amazon UK | Amazon US

Always Adam Blurb

London-based financial journalist Spencer Beck is obsessed with billionaire biotech prodigy, Adam Reid, orphaned in his mid-teens when his parents died in a tragic murder-suicide in New York City. A shadowy informant with MI5 connections promises Beck unfettered access to the mysterious Reid and introduces him to Daniel Flanagan, a retired Big Apple detective who investigated the deaths of Adam’s mother and father. Spencer’s initial scepticism, fed by the suspicions of the former police officer, turns to excitement when Reid reveals the truth about himself and his altruistic ambitions to protect society from a deadly virus with a powerful vaccine he’s developed. But when Beck’s entire world starts to implode, he discovers Reid harbours a vendetta that, left unchecked, threatens not only his survival but that of an entire species.

Boomslang Books

My Review

Mark Brumby has brilliant research skills. Always Adam is full of scientific knowledge that Brumby has eeked out into a delightful tale of intrigue and the impossible.

My first take of this novel was that it was absolute genius. The thrills begin right away and never stop coming. When I got to the first part with Adam as the narrator I felt like this was the most ludicrous book I have ever come across. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the storyline becomes over the top with ridiculous ideations.

But, after that first initial shock, Brumby did something that I didn’t think was possible, and he brought me back in. I got sucked into the story, where the ridiculous was still just as unbelievable, but it all seems plausible the further you read.

I will be honest and tell you that I only read this book to be helpful to Emma when someone else backed out of the tour. I had no interest in this novel from the blurb, but I am delighted that I chose to read it. The novel is entertaining and makes you believe the impossible is real.

A work of fiction like this is rare, and I haven’t had this feeling in some time. With that, I am pleased to award Always Adam 4 out of 5 stars. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantastical thrillers.

About the Author – Mark Brumby

A Cambridge economics graduate, Mark Brumby is a vastly experience financial analyst and owner of Langton Capital, an FCA-regulated advisory company specialising in the hospitality and leisure
sectors. He is a partner in the Imbiba Partnership, which invests in pub, bar and restaurant start-ups.

Mark wrote Always Adam (originally published as Payback) in 2013. Boomslang is republishing the book in November 2020 as it deserves to reach a wider audience in the current pandemic climate.

“Covid-19 has brought home not just the fragility of human life but the power of vaccines. Very shortly, we hope, a vaccine could physically alter the cell structure of three or four billion people and protect the same number again via herd immunity. But what if a vaccine were misused?”

“In some ways the world has changed but in many ways it remains the same. The ‘facts’ re our existence have not and will not change. But the events of the last few months have brought home the truth that we are only animals and that we are almost as much at risk from novel diseases with high R ratios and significant mortality rates as we have ever been.”

“I tried to take a step back and look at how we got here & what we’re doing. That sounds deep but some 99% of species that have ever existed are extinct, so what makes us so special?”

“Indeed, we’ve very nearly joined the list of ‘used-to-be’ species list on several occasions.
Anthropologists believe that the human population at times in our history fell to a total of less than 10,000 individuals worldwide. You could fit them all in a small football ground and it’s more than a 99.99% reduction on the number of people around today.”

“As an author, Covid-19 has moved the goalposts a little. It has made the unbelievable a little more believable. A pandemic, until December of last year was, literally, a fiction.”

Mark Brumby is married with five children and commutes between London and his home in York.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdamGregorReid
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ASpencerBeck

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