Divine Blueprint

Geneticist Jianna Makinde grew up in the shadow of her famous ancestor, Samara, who saved DaVinci's colonists from extinction by the fungal Bloom. But Samara's cure had off-target effects that plague every DaVincian: migraines, seizures, paralysis, and worse. Jianna dreams of fixing Samara's mistakes, but the Council refuses to fund her latest research proposal, thanks to the fearmongering of Guide Willow Evans, head of the Naturalist church. Worse, if anyone discovers she's secretly dating Michelangelo, son of a disgraced geneticist, her father will lose his Council seat.

Shortly after a catastrophic radiation storm wipes out the city's power grid, a ship appears in orbit, captained by a cyborg who claims to be Aurelius Hofstadter-the eccentric genius billionaire who built the ships that saved humanity from a dying Earth. Aurelius becomes the city's savior, repairing their infrastructure with mysterious advanced technology and his crew of silent cyborgs.

Aurelius wants to free Jianna's intellect: he gives her a lab on his ship and encourages her to break rules like Samara once did. But when he takes Michelangelo as his apprentice, offering unlimited access to forbidden knowledge-robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics-Jianna fears Michelangelo is dabbling with dangerous technologies that could cost his career, his freedom, even his life.

As Aurelius tightens his grip on the city's infrastructure and makes himself indispensable to the desperate Council, Jianna begins to suspect his generosity hides a darker agenda, and Naturalist Guide Evans is the only Council member still standing against him. As ancient secrets surface and factions splinter around faith and fact, Jianna must discover what the immortal billionaire really wants before it's too late.

For fans of The Martian, Seveneves, and Raised by Wolves, Divine Blueprint is part one of a mind-bending finale about legacy, faith, and the peril of playing god.