What I Liked

As a contemporary sci-fi, this book is quite well-written.
I really liked the concept and the moral ambiguity of the subject matter. This was pretty much the only thing that kept me reading to the end, as it was well-depicted and the question of how the protagonist would respond to it stayed present throughout the book.

The prose is delicate, pleasant and, for the most part, not overly packed with useless information.

Quotes I liked

I tug on the threads of my thoughts and roll them back into the words I was going to say.

I prefer to listen to the trees rather than look at them.

I worry about him. I worry about what will happen to us. And then the worry scatters into a sky of stars, beneath which I'm threaded into Jarek's limbs like a jigsaw.

For a second, I know that I could lose everything. But then he kisses me and the thought falls silent as the pressure of his lips seems to burst my eardrums.

Her voice wavers and I'd like to hug her but I still feel wrapped in Jarek's scent, as if our kiss is visible on my skin if you look closely enough.

He sits me down on a bench in the corridor and disappears, muttering something about fetching me some water. I think he can see as well as I can that I need something stronger. I need oblivion.

I'm watching the waves crash on the red, jagged rocks below me and my insides are too paralysed to care what happens next.

What I Didn't Like

At 50%, although there is one thread of conflict and a mystery has just started, there's little to no urgency to go with it.

At 85%, the plot actually starts going somewhere. Prior to this, the pacing is so slow and there's so little conflict that the plot is almost static. Sadly, by the time the plot starts moving, it's already obvious how it's going to end.

I don't buy the romance between Isobel and Jarek. Isobel seems too guarded and cold to fall so quickly for someone, especially when it's not out of pure loneliness - Isobel already has a boyfriend when she meets Jarek. Isobel's intense grief for Jarek, after knowing he was going to die all along, and only a few months of 'knowing' him, doesn't resonate with me.
I see no chemistry between them. Isobel barely knew anything about Jarek.
Because I don't believe in or care about the romance, I don't care about the main conflict of the story. If not for the vague mystery, I have no reason to continue reading the book.

Quotes that made me think 'Wtf...'

He looks at me, his face bursting with rationality.

The words slink out and disappear into the dim corners of the room.

I feel the love permeating through my clothes.

Logical flaws

I think of someone else spying on my Heaven - the Heaven I haven't even created yet - and it makes me feel sick. - The protagonist has been working as a Heaven architect for 10 years and is afraid of the impending war that could devastate the UK, but she still hasn't built her own Heaven?

It's little wonder that I fell for Jarek so quickly, so completely; it becomes less surprising that just a handful of shared connections - an abusive, absent father; the loss of a loved mother and a sister; a crisis of self-doubt and a willingness to cure it - would be enough to ignite a love affair in the face of death - Yeah... bullshit. Isobel starts getting the hots for Jarek the second he walks into her office for the first time, before she knows anything about him.

"Can your Codex be tracked?" "I got a guy to disable that shortly after I upgraded last year," - There's no reason given for Isobel having the tracking of her Codex disabled, other than to suit the plot a year later. Someone who is terrified of not being able to experience her own Heaven is not going to cut off her only chance at quickly being found (in case of death) and being connected up to her Heaven before her brain completely dies. It's only done for plot convenience.

"So you know that she was strangled and then drugged, just for good measure, perhaps to ensure death before a quick getaway." - Why would you crush someone's windpipe and THEN force them to swallow opioids?

"Daniel told me that Sarah had been seeing someone. He might have been to the house before; he might have seen them." - Isobel thinks someone goes to Sarah's house before she's killed and sees pills that only enter Sarah's house on the night she's killed.

"Strands of your hair were retrieved from her throat."
I look away again, at Jess, thinking of those brown waves of mine threaded down the back of Sarah's throat, ticking and scratching at its dry, terrified surface. - Not only does a well-educated woman think it's plausible that someone who strangled someone else would end up with a wad of their own hair down that person's throat - how in the name of fuck - but apparently police officers think it's a likely scenario too... If you killed someone, why would you thread an actual wad of your own hairs down their already collapsed throat afterwards (the autopsy would show a blunt object was used to force the hairs down there, they weren't just inhaled) and what cop is stupid enough to believe someone would do that and wasn't just set up? This flimsy piece of extremely flawed logic carries the entire plot.

"Valhalla gave you authority to use their simulation software?" I ask her. "Of course they did," Jess says. I detect a note of despondency in her voice. "They want me to solve all their problems - find a way of preventing ghost memories from getting into people's Heavens." "Or a way to cover it up," Daniel says. - It makes no sense that Valhalla would allow Jess to use their equipment to prove the existence of something that would destroy their whole business.

Part of me - a larger part than I might admit - wants to go and hold him. I know that I can't; it's not possible. - After Isobel watched Jarek rape and beat his wife and now that she knows for almost certain that he framed her in order to get away with killing his wife, Isobel wants to hold him.

For about half a minute, he holds his index finger and middle finger against the side of her throat. He stands again, his back to me. I'm relieved not to see her eyes. We stand there for some time, just waiting, just looking. - This is another huge flaw in logic. If Isobel is watching Jarek's memories, she should be seeing exactly what he sees, not just witnessing it all as an onlooker. Jarek didn't see his own back, so how is Isobel seeing Jarek's back? Jarek can only see and remember things from his own point of view, so that's exactly how Isobel should be seeing all of Jarek's memories. Yet, Isobel watches Jarek from afar. The logic needed to be twisted in order for the plot to make any sense, as, if Isobel relived Jarek's memory of killing Sarah, it still wouldn't prove that Jarek did it.

Isobel lives in the future where people have a Codex which is somehow digitally connected to their brains, so they can see the time and (I think) messages and such in their vision - the Codex and its purpose isn't explained. The Codex, and therefore the owner, can be tracked, as evidenced by Jarek tracking his wife without her permission, so why don't the police posthumously check the information stored on Jarek's Codex to prove his location at the time of the murder? Once again, for plot convenience, Isobel's tracking device was disabled - for no given reason - conveniently making it impossible for her to prove her innocence in Sarah's murder. I wouldn't have a problem with this if there was a good reason for Isobel turning off her tracker, but it goes against all logic in the story.

Why does the author open up the thread of Jarek saying his sister is dead and then have it turn out she's alive, with no reasoning behind it? Jarek has no reason to lie about it and his plan would have continued on the same either way. So why include it in the plot?

Don giving Isobel an alibi also has no impact on the plot. The alibi is evidently useless, as it's never mentioned again, and we never hear from Don again so why is it included?

Overall

The most disappointing thing about The Memory Chamber is the lack of conflict, suspense and plot twists.
There seems to be no turn-off from the direction the main plot is going in, once the mystery starts. There's no twist at the end, nothing that rewards the reader for slogging through so many pages of tedium and no real resolution to the moral issue presented at the beginning of the book.

Everything comes together, smoothly and conveniently, with literally no hitch whatsoever.

-I wanted Jess to turn out to be a liar, on Valhalla's side, to explain why she was so keen to get Isobel on the operating table.

-I wanted Jess to erase Jarek's ghost memory of killing Sarah, to eliminate Isobel's one last shred of proof that she's innocent.

-I wanted Maya and Caleb to go further in their sullying of Isobel's name and show just how dirty Valhalla would fight to not go out of business.

-I wanted Leyla's death to have a consequence to it.

-I wanted the impending war to actually come to a head and start fucking shit up for everyone.

-I wanted Daniel to be less straight-edge and risk his job for his belief in Isobel...

-I wanted anything to happen.

But it felt like nothing did.




Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Great idea, not so great execution. As an avid black mirror (& sci –fi) fan this book really appealed to me. However I found parts of it quite tedious and at times a little confusing. Along with a few others I also found Isobel to be annoying and drippy at times. It tries to be both a futuristic vison of what [technologies] may lie ahead and a twisty thriller, sadly it never really hits the spot for either in my humble opinion.

In The Memory Chamber, true death - as we understand it - is a thing of the past. In the future, you’ll be able to spend the rest of eternity re-living your happiest memories: that first kiss, falling in love, the birth of your children, enjoyed on a rolling loop for ever and ever. Isobel is a Heaven Architect, and she helps dying people create afterlives from these memories. So when she falls for Jarek, one of her terminally ill – but also married - clients, she knows that while she cannot save him, she can create the most beautiful of heavens, just for him. But when Jarek's wife is found dead, Isobel uncovers a darker side of the world she works within, and she can trust no one with what she finds. I loved this unusual and thought-provoking book. We all have our own private idea of what might be waiting for us on the other side and I was totally intrigued by the sound of a ‘Heaven Architect’ and what they’d build for me. Holly Cave is a talented and unusual writer who will definitely make you think hard about what you yourself feel about the moral dilemmas faced by her characters. It gives you a momentary feeling of being able to see the world in a different light and will definitely give you lots to talk about. If you like your books a wee bit different, you’ll really love The Memory Chamber and good luck constructing your very own Heaven.

Fascinating book,really well written and made me think,thought provoking

Not a book I would normally choose to read, however I did enjoy it and found it thought provoking

In a world where death no longer has to mean eternal sleep, Isobel is a Heaven Architect. Her role is to tease out the most important feelings, emotions and memories from your life on earth, and create your own personal Heaven which, all procedures being followed correctly, you will enter upon your death. This means that instead of eternal nothingness, you will instead spend eternity in a timeless state reliving the very best and most important moments of your life.

Isobel works largely with the rich and of course, those facing impending death. Jarek is one of the latter - a young man with a very aggressive form of incurable brain tumour who comes to Isobel to build his Heaven - a Heaven that he doesn't want his estranged wife to feature in at all. Falling for this charming, tragic man more each time she meets him, Isobel is torn between her professionalism, her husband, and her aching heart. Her feelings for him growing stronger with each session, Isobel is determined to make sure that Jarek has the best Heaven he can possibly have - ideally with her in it. As time moves on, Jarek's condition becomes increasingly worse and their time together is clearly going to come to an end sooner rather than later when a tragic event throws Isobel's personal and professional life into further chaos. Under suspicion, she is forced to confront moral issues around Heaven creation that have never arisen before. To prove herself innocent of any wrongdoing and avoid Jarek's artificial Heaven being destroyed forever, she has to undergo dangerous procedures and expose her most intimate thoughts to her colleagues and to the establishment.

I really liked the concept of this book - there are many questions raised from both a feasibility and a morality angle - right the way through from "could we really do that" to "even if we could, should we really do that?" How can you govern something like that? Is anything sacred?

I was quite fascinated by the behaviour of characters in this book although I don't think I particularly liked any of them very much. Perhaps that is part of the plan - I guess it's easier to remain objective to the story if you're not emotionally involved with the players.

An interesting takeaway from this book was that it made me think about my relationships & experiences; which would I take with me into my own personal Heaven and which people and events would be firmly left out? Who would you take with you and who would you close the door to?

An intriguing and thought provoking novel from Holly Cave.

I don't read many futuristic novels, but this one is an absolute corker. The reader is captivated throughout. It is set in the near future, but not so totally out of it as to be sci fi. The ending is utterly brilliant.

How can we be sure that Heaven exists? And if we can't be sure, could we take things into our own hands and build our own Heaven where our consciousness could live after we die? Set in a future where this technology available, we meet Izzy, a Heaven Architect. She builds Heavens from people's memories. We get to see the complicated legalities involved around these highly personal and private environments - you need someone's permission before they can even feature in your heaven - and the intense emotional connection it generates with one patient who is dying from a brain tumour. But is he all he seems? And when a murder is discovered, it brings to light questions around data privacy, morality and the very essence of how all this technology really works. And who deserves a Heaven... Fascinating world building, shady corporations and some deeply flawed and convoluted characters. My only problem was with the very predictable ending when there were so many more interesting directions this could have gone.

Wow, what a book this is! I’m very impressed with this read and it is one that will stick with me for a long time. I’m always intrigued by books that are about heaven and hell and this is a very unique twist to these topics.

Isobel is a Heaven Architect, it’s her job to help dying people create their afterlife from memories from their life. Enter Jarek, he’s come to create his afterlife but he’s still young and married – Isobel falls for him. Everything gets turned upside down in Isobel’s life after meeting Jarek and it makes her question everything she once knew.

Usually I avoid science fiction like the plague, I find them too confusing and I lose interest quickly. However The Memory Chamber has elements of science fiction but it is so much more than that – it’s thrilling, it’s exciting and it really does make you question everything.

Would you want to create your own afterlife from your memories? Before I started this book, I would have quickly answered yes, but reading on I had a different opinion. This book will be an excellent choice for a book club as everyone will have different ideas regarding these thoughts and it would be great to discuss them.

I loved Holly’s writing, she drew me in quickly to the book and within a few pages I knew I was going to love it. Holly’s writing is engaging and it really makes you want to read on. The science parts are brilliantly written and I was able to follow it without getting confused!

At times I did wonder how close are we to this world that Holly has created. The thought of that is scary and I for one hope I don’t see it! I highly recommend this read – even better buddy read it with someone as I guarantee you’ll be wanting to discuss the issues raised with someone else!

It’s addictive, it’s thrilling and it’s completely original.

It is some time in the future. Death is not necessarily the end if you can create your heaven of your favourite memories. Izzy is a Heaven Architect- a very good one. She spends a long time with her clients creating their heavens. Some are just planning ahead but many are terminally ill. When Jarek, who is dying of a brain tumour, comes to build his heaven she little realises how her neat world is about to change.

In spite of it being unprofessional she has an affair with Jarek. She knows he is married although jarek assures her is is over - he doesn't even want his wife in his heaven. When Jarek's wife is murdered just hours before Jarek dies Izzy insists on his innocence but it totally unprepared for what comes next.

This book blew me away. It is a really original concept, which would have made it an interesting read, but add the murder element & it put it in a whole new light. This is a book that will be on my mind for some time. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this highly original book.

An interesting idea of being able to create your own heaven. Set in a world on the brink of disaster, planning for your death has never been more important! Our architect is caught up in a web of deceit when she gets involved with a Client who then becomes suspect in a murder Investigation. Are people's heavens private, or can memories be plundered after death. A book that asks a lot of Moral questions that new Technologies provide dilemnas for. The one question that was not asked though, was it worth the risk to have an old fashioned afterlife, risking heaven, hell, or oblivion?

This is exactly the type of book that I love! As soon as I read the brief information about the book I just had to request this from Netgalley and I'm so glad that they approved my request.

Set briefly in a future when you can pay to build your own 'artificial heaven' that contains all of your favourite handpicked memories, this is an enthralling read. Isobel is a Heaven architect and is the best at her game but when she meets brain tumour sufferer Jarek her world suddenly gets a whole lot more difficult. Embarking on an affair with Jarek, Isobel's ethics are soon put to the test. It is only when Jarek's wife is murdered and Jarek dies suddenly does Isobel realises that perhaps she has been set up and framed for murder. But who would possibly want to frame her?

Is there a link to exploring other people's artificial heavens and finding the real truth of what happened to Jarek and his wife? Is it even ethical to 'invade' someone else's heaven once they have died? Is it even safe? Isobel must overcome these difficulties to ensure that she doesn't end up behind bars. It is at this stage that the book does get a bit technical and difficult to understand but I could understand the basics.

I was slightly disappointed in the ending not because it was a bad ending but just because throughout the book there is reference to a potential World War on the horizon and I would have loved to have seen this explored more. However it did not takeaway from an entirely original book that had me well and truly hooked until the end.

Wow, what a fascinating read The Memory Chamber is.  Once again I have stepped a little out of my comfort zone for this book but I'm rather liking this new, less restricted approach I've got going on at the moment.  I like to think I'm broadening my horizons as a reader, what do you think?

The Memory Chamber is, by and large, a futuristic thriller.  An intricate, considered and somewhat addictive thriller.  But there were other genres nudging their way in.  A smidge of romance, a sprinkling of sci-fi (or if you prefer speculative fiction) and a scattering of techno-thriller.  An interesting combination and one that held my attention from start to finish.

Imagine if you never died.  Imagine, providing you have the money and the desire (of course!), that someone could preserve and sculpt your most precious memories which you would then live for all eternity.  Your body would be disposed of but your essence would be captured and locked away in a secure lab.  Reliving the moments that made you the happiest, over and over again.  That's what Isobel does for a living.  She is a Heaven Architect and will design your perfect Heaven.  But when Isobel meets Jarek the last thing she expects is to fall in love with her client.  Her young, attractive, terminally ill, MARRIED client.  When Jarek's wife is discovered murdered, Isobel is determined to prove his innocence at any cost and is thrown into a world of suspicion ultimately discovering not all is as she first believed...

If I had to come up with one word to describe The Memory Chamber it would be 'fascinating'.  The idea of a synthetic Heaven totally piqued my interest and made me read every single word of this book, from start to finish.  Very much like the idea of my recent other 'science fiction-y' read, The Feed did.  I'm not normally one for romantic relationships in my stories but the spark between Isobel and Jarek was quite tantalising.  It certainly didn't put me off finishing the book!  What I would have liked was a little more mystery, but then I'm a crime reader and that's my thing!

You can't help but want to talk to others about this book and the ethical questions it raises.  Is the idea of a self-designed Heaven something that appeals to you?  Or would you rather just take your chances and wait to see what's on the other side?  It's a very original and brave choice of subject matter by the author and she has handled it incredibly well.

Would I recommend this book?  I would.  Particularly if you're looking for something a bit different.  I found Isobel a little annoying at times, Jarek a little creepy but it all added to the reading experience for me.  And that cover, OH.MY.GOSH - how stunning is that?! Overall an absolutely fascinating journey and I look forward to seeing what Cave gives us next.

Four out of five stars.

I chose to read and review an eARC of The Memory Chamber.  The above review is my own unbiased opinion.  My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

Is this the future?

Isobel Argent works for Oakley Associates as a Heaven Architect. She is immediately attracted to her new client, Jarek Woods, who is dying from a rare, aggressive brain tumour. The more time she spends with him, the more she feels that he is the person she has been looking for as her soulmate and even though time with him is going to be limited, because of the aggressive nature of the tumour, she throws herself into an intense affair, even if it means that she is breaking every ethical code in her contract (not to get involved with the people for whom she is designing a heaven).

She is shocked when DCI Daniel Lynden arrives to tell her that not only has Jarek died, but that he is now the chief suspect in the murder of his wife, Sarah. If he did murder her, he can no longer have access to the heaven that has been created for him by Isobel.

Isobel, refuses to believe that he could have carried out such a brutal crime especially as the murder included a tuft of Isobel’s hair which had been forced down the victim’s throat. She agrees to taking part in linking up to Jarek’s heaven ghost memories to prove that he couldn’t be the killer and that, somehow, someone else is responsible for the act and for stealing her hair to implicate her.

The only reason I’m giving four stars is because the plot is not only unique but so way “out there” that the author deserves them for her imagination.

However, having given these four stars let me tell you what my heart feels about this storyline. I loathed the idea of a world where science has managed to kill off religion (but keeps Christmas and all the songs and glitter associated with it). I loathed all the characters. None of them had any real heart for, or empathy with, each other. I loathed the idea that this crazy notion could come to fruition in the future. The idea that people could have “heaven designed” for them, where all their happy memories are written into a storage unit, just filled me with horror and fear that the future of humanity could become so robotic and empty.

But that’s why Holly Cave deserves the four stars (in all honestly Holly, I’m removing one as a protest from my heart!) because she has made me examine my ideas on life and my hope that even as we adapt and use more electronics, life is still based on some kind of belief in spirituality.

I’m looking forward to reading other reviews of this book; I’m even looking forward to people commenting on my review, because this book deserves a discussion. It has certainly led to my head and my heart having a serious argument!

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I found this book very interesting and mostly believable – the only reason that I marked it down a star was that I found the main protagonist, Isobel, to be someone who I really didn’t identify with, or care about, therefore it was a bit hard to care much about what happened to her. I felt that some of the minor characters were much more sympathetic, and I cared much more about them. This is probably a failing of me, and should not detract from a well written, very interesting and rather worrying story. If only I had cared more about Isobel I would be writing a rave review.

This is a rather interesting read since the concept of the story is something new. I just hoped that there is more of a twist in the story.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley and Quercus Books in exchange for an honest review, thank you very much!
A good, easy read, and an interesting concept for a novel. Set in the future where people can use their happiest memories to create an 'Artificial Heaven', and then project their consciousness into it after death. Would be a great holiday read, not too taxing but has some good twists along the way.
However, don’t expect to be drawn too deeply into the story or the characters, as it all feels a little superficial and under-developed.

Can you imagine it? A world in which we can custom-make our own heaven! Where the fear of death no longer haunts you. Instead, you can spend eternity re-living your most cherished and happiest of memories! This is the world I found myself in as I read The Memory Chamber by Holly Cave. And what an intriguing and completely original world it is!

It is in this world that we meet Isobel, a Heaven Architect, whose job it is to custom-make each person's heaven. She meets Jarek, a dying, married man whom she subsequently falls for. She is completely devoted to her job and tries her utmost to make the perfect heaven for Jarek. Until his wife is found murdered! Isobel and Jarek are considered as suspects by the police. Now, that complicates EVERYTHING for Isobel. The book then takes on a darker direction as she questions everything she believed about her job...she is unable to trust anyone and finds herself on the run.

Dissecting the scientific, moral, religious, political and monetary consequences of such a unique world, this book certainly provides the reader with plenty to think about, making one question whether this world would in actual fact be heavenly or hellish.

Nicely paced with intriguing characters that are not always easy to like, spiced up with a clever, futuristic, sci-fi aspect to it, a pinch of romance and a few twists and turns, you'll enjoy this one if you're into reading books that stimulate your grey matter with something that is completely different to what's already on the bookshelves.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Quercus Books and to Holly Cave for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review of this book.

A very original science fiction mystery set in London in the near future. People are now able to save their most precious memories and have them woven in to a tailor made 'heaven' that they can relive for eternity after their death. A most thought provoking story, the like of which I have not read before.

I was instantly drawn to The Memory Chamber - part sci-fi, and part mystery/thriller - it just seemed a little different to everything out there, like having your own heaven architect and creating your own heaven - I can't say I've ever heard anything like it or read anything like that anywhere. Therefore the originality of the book would get full marks, and it's also extremely well written for a debut, but unfortunately the characters made me have to be honest and mark it down. I just didn't connect with any of them, I didn't not like them, I didn't love them - It's nothing to do with the author or her writing, I think sometimes as a reader you just simply don't care enough for certain characters - so that kind of stopped me fully engaging completely with the book, despite loving all the other elements. I'd definitely read more from this author though in the future.