'A pandemic is racing through our world, changing people subtly but irrevocably. The first sign for some is losing their faith. For others it comes as violent outpourings of creativity, reckless driving and seeing visions.
'Scientist Charlotte Zinn is close to a cure when her partner becomes infected. Overnight her understanding of the disease is turned upside down. Should she change the path of evolution?
'As Australia is torn apart, reporter Brigid Bayliss is determined to uncover the dark truth behind the religious response to the outbreak.
'Brigid and Charlotte find themselves on the frontline of a world splintering into far left and far right, with unexpected power to change the course of history. But at what cost?
Dark, thrilling and compulsively readable, The Second Cure is a provocative debut novel about control, courage and belief.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'A plague with myriad weird effects spreads throughout the world in Margaret Morgan’s début, a speculative political thriller. The disease’s name is toxoplasmosis pestis: it causes people to develop intense synaesthesia, to act in impulsive and dangerous ways, or to lose their religious faith. In Sydney, scientist Charlie Zinn attempts to synthesise a cure, while in Brisbane, journalist and ‘political tragic’ Brigid Bayliss tries to ‘shine daylight’ on the rise of a far-right Christian politician who is exploiting his state’s fear to gain power. There is a lot to set up in the novel’s first half, and not all of it is done with equal grace. Occasionally, Morgan’s reliance on scientific jargon can be difficult to wade through, especially when she outlines the disease’s ‘genetic mutation’. A number of chapters are heavily freighted with exposition.' (Introduction)
'A plague with myriad weird effects spreads throughout the world in Margaret Morgan’s début, a speculative political thriller. The disease’s name is toxoplasmosis pestis: it causes people to develop intense synaesthesia, to act in impulsive and dangerous ways, or to lose their religious faith. In Sydney, scientist Charlie Zinn attempts to synthesise a cure, while in Brisbane, journalist and ‘political tragic’ Brigid Bayliss tries to ‘shine daylight’ on the rise of a far-right Christian politician who is exploiting his state’s fear to gain power. There is a lot to set up in the novel’s first half, and not all of it is done with equal grace. Occasionally, Morgan’s reliance on scientific jargon can be difficult to wade through, especially when she outlines the disease’s ‘genetic mutation’. A number of chapters are heavily freighted with exposition.' (Introduction)
