Eruption

Jace Vega secures a job at Omnibus, a rising company that has monopolized the field of modern electronics. Soon after, she stumbles upon an Omnibus tablet dropped by a stranger, a device that does not yet exist in the company’s product lineup. When she searches the tablet to find the stranger’s identity, she discovers an impending information-terrorism crisis and photos of her that she doesn’t recognize. Jace believes there’s only one possible explanation: somebody from the future sent the tablet to the past, as a message. Jace’s efforts to untangle the mystery of the tablet force her to confront forgotten memories, her father, the son of Omnibus’s CEO, and her own social-media obsession. Quintana’s debut is a standard fast-paced techno-thriller, its momentum set more by intrigue than action as her characters question each other’s motives and loyalties. This quick, entertaining read unravels toward the end but holds potential for future installments to resolve the time-travel paradoxes it sets up. (Jan.)