"This is a chilling examination of a possible future, filled with lovable characters, excellent pacing, and sharp sociopolitical criticism."
–Publisher's Weekly
Amazon #1 Bestseller in Hard Sci Fi
Finalist for the Global Thriller Award and the National Indies Excellence Award
In the final battle with drug-resistant bacteria, one woman's blood holds a secret weapon.
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Rory and her father have survived the antibiotic crisis that has killed millions, including Rory’s mother—but ingenuity and perseverance aren’t their only advantages. When a stoic and scarred young military veteran enters their quiet life, Rory is drawn to him against her better judgment . . . until he exposes the secrets her mother and father kept from her, including the fact that her own blood may hold the cure the world needs, and she is the target of groups fighting to reach it first.
When the government comes after Rory, aiming to use her for a cure it can sell to the highest bidder, she’s forced to flee with her father and their new protector. But can she find the new path of human evolution before the government finds her?
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about Rachael
Rachael Sparks was born in Waco, Texas. She graduated with a degree in Microbiology from Texas A&M University. After a decade-long career in Austin, Texas, as a transplant specialist, she joined a startup fighting healthcare-acquired infections, thus satisfying her lifelong interest in infectious diseases and the science of human health. After relocating with her husband, daughter, and mother to Asheville, North Carolina, she finally put her first novel onto the page. In her free time, she serves on the board of the Asheville Museum of Science and loves to cook, brew, garden, and spend time with friends and family.
Reviews & EXCERPTS
"In this smart and alarmingly relevant debut, Rory Stevigson and her family must outwit their corrupt government in order to halt a bacterial apocalypse. In the near future, the world has been ravaged by an unstoppable disease spurred by climate change, antibiotics overuse, and unethical health care systems. Rory and her father, Byron, live off the grid in Woods Hole, Mass., using their background as scientists to help their neighbors whenever they can. Unbeknownst to them, however, Rory has attracted the attention of the U.S. task force dedicated to finding and privatizing the cure. A stranger calling himself Navy appears and helps Rory and Byron escape to resistance headquarters in Nova Scotia. Together, Rory and Navy race to save the world, and fall in love along the way. Rory is a smart, competent heroine who takes no nonsense from the men around her while maintaining empathy and emotional vulnerability. Sparks uses Rory’s characterization to lamp-shade some of the sexist tropes of postapocalyptic stories while keeping her believably human.
This is a chilling examination of a possible future, filled with lovable characters, excellent pacing, and sharp sociopolitical criticism."
-Publisher's Weekly
RESISTANT explores the possibility of a world where infections can't be treated with a simple antibiotic prescription.
That world isn't far from us.
The CDC revealed recently that over 200 infections in the US in 2017 were resistant to all antibiotics.
"Reading the details of her rapid decline almost 90 years later, I was struck by the historic nature of her death—almost unfathomable to Americans today—and set out to find out why, exactly, people don’t die of splinters anymore. In the process I discovered the peculiars of her death weren’t, in fact, all that peculiar. In fact, unless we change our relationship to antibiotics, death by splinter could be familiar once again."
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- My Ancestor Died of a Splinter
Eleanor Cummins, Popular Science
10 million patients are expected to die of drug-resistant infections by 2050.
That's the population of San Antonio, TX...
plus NYC.
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CONTACT
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For publicity:
Crystal Patriarche, BookSparks, crystal@booksparksPR.com, 480-650-1688