Amoreena Daniels has found herself in a terrible spot; her mother has cervical cancer and her medical insurance has lapsed. Now Amoreena has to find a way to pay for a new radical treatment that could save her mother's life and still stay in school. She is bombarded on all fronts; an evil woman in charge of reviewing her mother's medical treatment and payment of such, the opportunity to work in an internship, and the go ahead to graduate early. She wants it all and wants to be able to pay her mother's bills, but cannot see a way to do it; until the day she is approached by a woman with an extraordinary offer. Amoreena can help a couple bring a baby into the world by becoming a surrogate mother. She will be paid an amazing amount of money per trimester and will be able to do everything she wants and needs to do.
After thinking things over and her mother taking a turn for the worse, Amoreena takes the plunge and signs up for the surrogacy program. As time passes the seemingly innocent facade of Meechum Medical Corporation begins to crumble. Amoreena begins to have intrusive tests that make no sense, strange dreams, and fetus movement that is both painful and entirely too early make way for terrifying information that Amoreena must decide to ignore or accept. Is her baby a child created for a loving couple or a monster spawned for experimentation?
Alan Nayes has penned a terrifying book. Yes, the suspense was obvious and the ending not as explosive as the buildup made it to be, but I was frightened to the point of nightmares because of this book. What scared me wasn't what happened in the book, but the fact that it truly could happen in the here and now. With so much funding out there for stem cell research, cloning, DNA research, the atrocities that occurred in Gargoyles could very well be happening now.
Moral fiber notwithstanding, there have been a number of corporations that have done things in the name of science that would shock and disturb the average man. The characters in Gargoyles believed that what they were doing was for the greater good of mankind; nothing frightens me more than a fanatic believing in a cause and putting themselves in the position to judge what is good and what is evil. Alan Nayes successfully wrote a book that was a fantastic journey through the life of a troubled woman thrust into the clutches of an immoral company. Not only that, but I feel there was an underlying message; who are we to judge where mankind should ultimately end up? I give Gargoyles 4 ¾ test tubes out of five.
Serena Polheber
gottawritenetwork.com
March 26, 2006
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