Green Valley

Green Valley is a plugged-in, autonomous virtual community sequestered behind concrete walls. It's a technological paradise surrounded on all sides by the community of Stanton who have turned their back on digital technology.

Of course the story is bound to be a cautionary metaphor for the dangers of our increasingly online world as we escape further into our carefully curated bubbles to avoid the messiness of the real world. But I was not ready for the third act turn toward horror. I should have suspected when children begin showing up dead in Stanton which prompts Lucie Sterling to investigate, driven by her need to know if her niece is ok.

The setup is all there but I still struggled with the world building. There's a lot of handwaving to create the story's conditions and I found the writing a bit clunky as the author moved characters around the board. I could sense the taut thriller this might have been given some judicious editing.