Veracity by Laura Bynum is the author’s first book. She has always had an interest in how language and words can shape perception and allow people to cede control of their lives. And this is a major theme in her novel. The book is an interesting twist on Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, but with a different goal in mind.

Harper Adams is a Monitor. She has the ability to see people’s auras (for lack of a better word) and is being used by the government to help control people’s thoughts and ideas. She has a daughter, Veracity, who has been taken away from her and a best friend that was murdered by the Blue Coats, the enforcement arm of the government. She also has a secret, she’s about to escape and join the resistance. Once she joins, she will be subjected to a battery of training and education and is needed to help take down the government by working with an inside man.

The book is an interesting look at the power of words. Red listed words are words that can no longer be said and the penalty for saying them is death. Every person has a slate attached around their carotid artery which monitors every word they say and action they do. If a person says one of the red listed words, then they can be shocked or even killed by the slate. The blue coats are also around to administer more stern punishments, everything from a broken bone to rape.

The biggest problem with this book is that it spends a lot of time with Harper doing nothing, but waiting for someone else to show up and tell her what to do. There is a series of flashbacks that help show us how we got to this situation and a shock twist about the pandemic. But the book itself feels slight and unfinished. There is too much going on outside our main character that we never learn about. With Harper spending half the book waiting to make it from leaving her life to getting into the resistance, but it is mostly Harper just waiting. Mildly recommended if at all. Read The Handmaid’s Tale instead.