Elixir

Winner - Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award, Silver Medal Readers' Favorite Book Awards A teenage prodigy goes on a suspenseful adventure to cure his girlfriend of a mysterious disease. Protagonist Sean Malone's journey begins at fourteen. He has a genius IQ north of 200, a full-ride scholarship to the country's top technical university, and over a million bucks from a winning run on Jeopardy. However, he wishes he could just be normal. His genius comes at a price. When he cracks the Traveling Salesman Problem, the hardest enigma in computer science, the US government manipulates him, using his cryptographic discovery to pursue a covert operation and killing innocent people along the way. When Sean pushes back, the Department of Defense pushes harder, and the brilliant protagonist is forced to flee to Rome to build a new life under a new name, abandoning academics, and hiding his mental gift from everyone. He enjoys a quiet existence in secrecy the next few years. And at eighteen, falls in love. The calm shatters when his girlfriend, Natasha, turns critically ill. Her doctors have no idea how to control her disease before it overcomes her. His intellect is her only hope of survival. He knows nobody else can figure out the medical puzzle before her time runs out. Sean brazenly returns to the US, where he has to avoid the omnipresent eye of the NSA as he tries to piece together a cure. His obstacles intensify when he hacks into the servers of a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company. And it finds out. He now has to dodge not just one, but two powerful institutions on US soil, all while besting a next-to-impossible medical problem and finding a way back to Europe before it's too late for Natasha. Elixir is a story about identity, secrets, and above all, love. This Amazon #1 bestselling thriller, author Ted Galdi's debut, is enjoyed by both YA and adult fiction audiences. Readers of all types find its parallels to modern society intriguing. An NSA book, reminiscent of the Edward Snowden incident, the technothriller examines the darkness that can loom over government agencies. And its take on the Ebola virus is an expression of how human ingenuity, if allowed to flourish, can make the world a safer and better place, a hopeful reminder in light of Ebola outbreak 2014. A fast-paced, sci fi medical thriller with unique characters and streaks of cutting-edge mathematics, Elixir, written in the tradition of authors like Michael Crichton, is sure to stir readers' emotions while compelling them to turn pages.