While You Were Gone (Duplexity, #2) by Amy K. Nichols

These days, even in our fantasies we can’t escape the dragnet of government surveillance. Getting pulled over by cops on the way to the inland seas of our imagination. The place of art, both street and high, in a society where conformity trumps all other virtues. These are just some of the things author Amy K. Nichols meditates upon in her epically readable second novel, While You Were Gone. I read it fast, oblivious to the passage of hours, never having to peak ahead for a chapter break. It’s a page-turner in the truest sense, and, like the first in the series, the bifurcated narration adds impetus to the plot while keeping each chapter fresh and fun. It’s a darker book than the first, with more of an emphasis on the chilling effects that overly invasive government surveillance can have on culture and society, while at the same time being chock full of the teen angst and romance of the first. Oh yeah, and plenty of action too!Amy K. Nichols is a name to watch. If you haven’t yet read While You Were Gone, or its predecessor, While You Were Here, than you should immediately. You will be able to claim having discovered her first, before Hollywood and the rest of the herd did.