REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS
Absolutely over the moon to see The Cure included in The Times best thrillers of 2025 so far, reviewed by James Owen.
You see that trigger-happy psychotic Russian president?
He's mine.
The review is below.
”Not too far in the future, a genetic cure for ageing is found. However, it has unforeseen consequences. The population soars, causing environmental havoc while the young have no jobs and no money. A life limit of 120 years is imposed, Logan’s Run-style, but naturally the rich try to get round that. They also have access to fancier jabs, which can make them virtually immortal. Unfortunately such “Supers” tend to develop psychotic tendencies, one example being the Russian president who unleashed nuclear devastation on Ukraine.
Like most speculative fiction, Eve Smith’s novel is a commentary on the contemporary. That element is perhaps inevitably more original than the plot, in which a crack “Omnicide” investigator, Mara Black, and the sidelined inventor of the vaccine, Ruth Hammond, hunt down the rogue scientist who hijacked her discovery and is cooking up sinister new schemes. Even so, this a thought-provoking thriller with much to say about our obsession with looking youthful."
This has made my month, huge thanks to James Owen.
I was extremely pleased to see that The Cure was selected in New Scientist’s best fiction picks for April, in stellar company along with another novel bizarrely about an antiageing cure. Alison Flood, the reviewer comments:
"I love the way the genre continues to tackle the biggest issues of our day, whether that’s ageing or artificial intelligence...
In this speculative thriller, an injection has been invented that delays ageing. Of course, the super-rich are spoiling things, taking an upgrade that extends human life still further. The population is skyrocketing when a dangerous side effect of the vaccine emerges, and the planet is under threat…"
THE CURE: EVE SMITH'S DARK DYSTOPIA HITS HARD
What begins as a cure soon becomes humanity's greatest dilemma.
How do you manage immortality in a world already bursting at the seams?
I was over the moon with this SciFiNow Magazine review by Burt Peterson: a beautifully written, discerning analysis of key themes and characterisation in The Cure.
I include an excerpt below, and you can read the full review here.
Eve Smith, author of Off Target and One, is back with another dose of gripping speculative dystopian fiction in The Cure, a taut thriller that blends the excitement of scientific exploration with hard-hitting social commentary, painting a disturbing and all-too-possible vision of the future.
Apparent in all of Smith’s works, including The Cure, is her richly textured world-building. While the split narrative plot drives at an aggressive pace, it’s the well-thought-through fundamentals of how society would operate in this strange dystopia that really unsettles and keeps you gripped.
Smith doesn’t shy away from the reality of the darker impulses of humanity. The elite’s obsession with eternal life becomes a stark warning of what can happen when power becomes unchecked.
The ethics of genetic manipulation is a popular subject for Smith, and in The Cure she is able to expand the question beyond the character to society as a whole, playing with the Jurassic Park question of whether just because scientists can do something, should they?
Not so much a cautionary tale as it is a challenge to the reader to reflect on the choices we are currently making to allow the kind of future we’re building, who gets to shape it and at what cost.
The Cure is yet another piece of insightfully thrilling writing from the master of ethical science dystopia.
The Cure was included in Time & Leisure magazine’s top three spring releases. Julie Anderson’s review is below.
The third new release is The Cure by Eve Smith (Orenda Books, £9.99) published on 10th April. Smith writes well-researched and prescient speculative thrillers. Her debut, The Waiting Rooms (2020) set in the aftermath of an antibiotic resistance crisis, attracted both attention and praise and she followed this with Off-Target (2021) and One (2023). The Cure is, in my opinion, her best so far. It has a fascinating premise; wouldn’t we all like to live, healthily and wealthily, for ever? In a future world where the lives of individuals are circumscribed and lifespan limited because of climate change and rampant over-population, two, very different, women come together to seek revenge on the man whose ruthless pursuit of immortality helped cause the crisis.
In the late Professor Erik Grundleger she has an excellent villain — vain, cold, unscrupulous, obsessive and predatory. Yet the emotional heart of the story lies with the two avenging furies; Ruth Hammond, one-time scientific collaborator with Grundleger, who is a woman ravaged by the consequences of her own, innocent, scientific breakthrough and Mara Black, Omnicide’s ace detective, driven by the memories of her father’s humiliation but ignorant of her own history. Advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles interpolated into the text give a convincing perspective on how society gradually got to where it is when the book opens. The first-person narrative, shared between Ruth and Mara, is also divided, like A Girl, above, between ‘Now’ and ‘Then’, although in Ruth’s case the ‘Then’ moves forward in time, coming closer to the events of the novel. There is edge-of-the-seat jeopardy and pace as the hunters close in upon their all-powerful prey, with more than one surprise awaiting them and the reader. An entirely believable emotional coda brings a sad acceptance to the two protagonists.
I wrote an article about the realities behind the quest for eternal youth in SciFiNow Magazine.
From biohacking American millionaires to vampire-like blood transfusions, you might be surprised and disturbed just how closely fact mirrors even the most macabre fiction.
Drawing on my research for The Cure, I took a look at the science behind four famous books & films:
The Substance, Dracula, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Then I asked the question: could this ever really happen?
I did an interview with the lovely book events company Interview Room One. Simon and I chatted about the inspiration behind the book, strange but true tales from the antiageing industry, the things I wished I could have included but couldn't, and why cheating death might not be all it's cracked up to be...
You can listen to the interview via the link here.
I have been so lucky to receive some incredible reviews from bloggers on my blog tour.
Below are a few excerpts with links to the full reviews.
"Eve Smith has done it again. Broken my brain & made me fearful for the future. Her books stand as cautionary tales, to stop & think long & hard about what we want our future to look like, & the consequences of pursuing self over community."
- JenMedsBookReviews"An incredible, fast moving and emotionally evocative thriller that delivers deep layers of warning brought to life in technicolour. The Cure is exciting, horrifying, sad and threatening. Read it if you dare."
- Martha Dunlop"The Cure kept me on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last. A rollercoaster ride of ups & downs leading to some spectacular twists near the end... The world building is also excellent."
- Patrick Mahon for SciFiCrowsNest"The Cure is an utterly compelling read, a blistering thriller but also an essay on the future of medical advances & the repercussions they may have on the world... Smith's ability to weave a complex tale is outstanding."
- Books by Bindu"This is a story which will captivate and challenge you, make you think, and perhaps make you reconsider certain issues. I’ve said it before, and will keep saying it: Eve Smith is a terrifyingly good writer."
- Intensive Gassing about Books
I did an interview pre launch with blogger Louise Fairburn for her crime book girl blog.
You can read her Five by Five interview with me about The Cure here.
Eve Smith’s books are disturbing, unsettling and downright scary in some ways – probably because the topics she has written about are either with us or on the cusp of realisation. But while I shy away from horror tales, near-future dystopian scariness is definitely on my radar, especially when it comes with gripping, page-turning plots. If you haven’t experienced Eve’s novels, I do recommend you dive in – they’re standalones, so you can start anywhere. Eve herself is, like so many crime fiction authors, a wonderful person to spend time with and a big fan of meeting readers, so if you see her at a festival or event, do say hi – and she’s doing a fair amount of library events in Oxfordshire, so keep an eye on her website for more information; she’s always great on a panel, informed and engaging and often darkly hilarious.
Author quotes are really important to include on your book’s cover, and many authors were kind enough to take the time to read The Cure. Here are just a selection of the lovely authors who provided reviews.
