Oleander

From USA Today best-selling author Ryan Armstrong, a scientist journeys through space to discover alien life and recover her loss of what defines us - memories.

I’m Emily Bircher.

A scientist. My memories were deleted. I don’t remember, but my feelings remain. I’m traveling space to study alien life. Hoping feelings stop at the speed of light.

The year 2095: Dr. Emily Bircher is the most brilliant, celebrated research scientist on earth, a botanist, and a medical doctor. Emily loses her husband, Alaric. She dims her memory of him, calculating that is how to move on.

The US government invites her to embark on an interstellar mission to the exoplanet Proximus b, Earth’s nearest neighbor. The planet has a strong magnetic field allowing it to retain an atmosphere like Earth’s.

Emily refuses to go. She is still grieving. The government deceives her, stealing her memories of Alaric from the chip in her brain. Leaving her with only scarred pain.

With nothing tethering her to Earth anymore, she travels at nearly the speed of light to the planet, a five-year journey. Her groundbreaking research there uncovers alien life’s possibilities, while her experience provides evidence of humanity’s depraved, violent limits.

Emily still yearns for the husband she doesn’t know she had. He wasn’t carved out of her brain; the feeling of him is still etched into her heart.

Her greatest discovery on the planet is communication with an alien life-form. Through love. Love is built from memories. Emily finds memories create feelings that never truly go away. To love, Emily must accept the feelings that lost memories create.