If all that wasn’t enough, interspersed between the narrative chapters are excerpts from an academic-style book about Earth and potential alternative evolutionary pathways. Kay and Lee are reunited before crashing headlong into a multi-dimensional adventure. It turns out that the very fabric of reality is at stake. A shadowy billionaire manipulated Kay’s far-right group attackers whilst the missing Mal returns, from who-knows-where, backed by a strange race of people who are also hopeful of enlisting the mathematician’s services. She is one of the few people in the country able to understand the math behind a high-level encryption algorithm. Strings pulling strings and plots within plots are the order of the day in Doors of Eden. The British Secret Service has been monitoring Kay. Kay, a transgender mathematician, is attacked by far-right thugs the same night Lee receives a phone call from Mal. The main narrative picks up the action a few years later.

Lee is left behind, with a strange story to tell and her heart shattered. Something peculiar happens, and one of the women, Mal, goes missing. They’re following up strange reports of birdmen in the South West of the UK. I’d love to have seen Tchaikovsky’s route map for this book! It opens with two young women in Cornwall, “ cryptid” hunting.

The Doors of Eden takes the reader on a journey that’s almost entirely unexpected. This was a big mistake, as The Doors of Eden is a thought-provoking and absorbing read. I put off reading this one, fearing it was a little heavy for my current state of mind. Back to novels this week for Word Wednesday and a full-on science fiction tome from Adrian Tchaikovsky.

The doors of eden