BLOG TOUR: "Pale Highway" by Nicholas Conley

Pale Highway
By Nicholas Conley
Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Gabriel Schist is spending his remaining years at Bright New Day, a nursing home. He once won the Nobel Prize for inventing a vaccine for AIDS. But now, he has Alzheimer’s, and his mind is slowly slipping away.

When one of the residents comes down with a horrific virus, Gabriel realizes that he is the only one who can find a cure. Encouraged by Victor, an odd stranger, he convinces the administrator to allow him to study the virus.  Soon, reality begins to shift, and Gabriel’s hallucinations interfere with his work.

As the death count mounts, Gabriel is in a race against the clock and his own mind. Can he find a cure before his brain deteriorates past the point of no return?

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Originally from California, Nicholas Conley has currently made his home in the colder temperatures of New Hampshire. He considers himself to be a uniquely alien creature with mysterious literary ambitions, a passion for fiction, and a whole slew of terrific stories he’d like to share with others.

When not busy writing, Nicholas is an obsessive reader, a truth seeker, a sarcastic idealist, a traveler, and — like many writers — a coffee addict.

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My Review

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In a world of flat tales that repeat themselves, readers can long for a fresh perspective. This reader does, and it is a book like Pale Highway that brought me that much-needed breath of fresh air. This was a new way of telling a sci-fi tale that touches on a level of humanity that science fiction often leaves on the backburner. It seems that almost every book I have gotten from Red Adept Publishing has been brilliantly written, but this one takes it a step further with its poignant look at a debilitating disease and the darkness of the human mind.

The story focuses on a genius scientist who cured AIDS. He's a character who is hard to understand at first. He seems very bland, but soon the reader is engrossed in his mind, as he fights his way through the thick haze of Alheizemer's Disease in order to cure another disease that might be even worse than AIDS was.

The story has many horror and literary elements, not to mention sci-fi, but it is the inner struggle of the protagonist, the encouragement he receives, and the strength he exuberates that makes this a book worth reading. It's the sheer humanity of the character, the true darkness of the disease, and the uplifting vibe that makes you root for Gabriel at every turn.

I loved this book more than I had expected to. It is definitely high on my list of recommendations.

5/5--dark, beautiful, and emotional.