“Lengard is a secret government facility for extraordinary people,” they told me. 

I believed them. That was my mistake.

There isn’t anyone else in the world like me.

I’m different. I’m an anomaly. I’m a monster.

For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four — ‘Jane Doe’ — has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word.

As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new — and unexpectedly kind — evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot … and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world. – Goodreads.com

This story has a distinct feel of La Femme Nikita and took a little while to get going and hook me.

With Jane’s tragic past and more than two years of torture and experimentation,  you can’t blame the girl for refusing to talk.  During this time, her schedule is unvarying, she’s held prisoner in isolation, and escorted in handcuffs by guards to evaluators who repeatedly poke, prod, and attempt to break her in one way or another.  She’s shown no kindness or affection, is self-reliant, and is angry, scared, confused, and accepting of her fate.  But she finds the strength to survive and fight back in her own way.

Enter a new evaluator – a handsome, compassionate guy Jane’s age who treats her like a person, and it’s understandable that she responds to him.  But also disappointing in a way.  It takes nearly 100 pages to get to this point, but then there’s a snowball effect and things come to her almost too easily.

I enjoyed the original premise, world-building, and twists, but wish less time was spent on getting Jane to talk and more on developing the secondary characters.  They’re charming and amusing, but I was left wanting to know more about them and how they fit into this story.

With several things left unresolved and a strong hint of a love triangle, I’m guessing this is the first in a series, and I’m intrigued enough to continue reading.  I’d recommend this books to fans of sci-fi-fantasy blended with covert government operations.  Whisper is scheduled for publication May 1st, 2018.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.