The Zara Project
by Dell Holmes
MOST CINEMATIC BOOKY
The judge's reasoning
This is not a book built on sentences that earn their breath — the prose leans on stock phrasing ("steel resolve," "ballet of defense," "her presence introduced a warmth") and the dialogue frequently exists to deliver exposition rather than character. But the pitch underneath it is genuinely strong, and Holmes knows how to move a plot. The premise — a clone activated with her dead father's digitized consciousness lodged in her chip, waking into a facility that has already monetized her existence before she's drawn breath — is a clean, marketable hook with real commercial instinct behind it. The opening chapters do the job an opening needs to do: within thirty pages Zara has woken up disoriented, discovered a voice in her head, survived an assassination attempt via proxy (Chi's corridor fight against ten Kryth warriors is a legitimately fun, well-paced set piece — 'the redirected blade... cutting down four more warriors' has actual choreography to it), and out-maneuvered a boardroom of authority figures to buy her droid-companion's contract. That debriefing scene, where Zara leverages Eamon's hidden fortune to outflank Huxley in real time, is the strongest structural beat in the excerpt — it gives Zara agency rather than just reaction, and it's the moment the book's central engine (competent heroine + secret resources + corporate antagonist) clicks into gear. Chi's reveal of her 'Gentleman Escort' history is a rare instance where the book reaches for something with real weight, and it lands. Readers coming to this book want fast plotting, a clear conspiracy, a forbidden-romance slow burn, and a heroine who talks back to authority — and on those specific genre terms, it delivers.
Judged by Eleanor "Nell" Whitcombe — Literary Fiction · Prose & Style
"A sentence either earns its breath or it doesn’t."
Supporting passages
"The redirected blade, now tethered to her control, spun low and wide like a silver ghost, cutting down four more warriors before the final one lunged directly into its path to end the assault."
A cleanly choreographed action beat that gives the excerpt real genre momentum.
"I formally requesting that she be repaired and permanently assigned to me... Liam Eamon—the donor whose DNA was used to create me—established a bank account containing over six million charoids."
The scene where Zara wields her inherited leverage against the boardroom is the book's sharpest hook, giving its premise teeth.
Per-axis rubric scores
Every Booky-winning book is scored across all ten craft axes. The award is given on the top axis (or top two for premium tiers).
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