Connie Willis came to my attention when I was looking through some of the older reviews at AAR and came across one for Doomsday Book, a science fiction time-travel story about a young student who goes back in time to England during the time of the Black Plague. I gobbled it up (and have since read it twice more –it’s become one of my top ten reads) and picked up some of the author’s other works. Crosstalk was published in 2016 and was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Readers Favorite Science Fiction that year; I can see why, as it kept me up reading late into the night.

Crosstalk is set in the not-too-distant future, one where our addiction to phones and social media is still in full swing. But couples are looking for that one extra thing to connect them, and it’s all the rage to have a simple medical procedure to implant an EED (which is never defined in the story), which purportedly allows couples to have an empathic emotional connection, enhancing their communication. Couples are told to expect to feel each other’s emotions within about twenty-four hours of the implant surgery.

Briddey Murphy works as a manager for Commspan, a rival telecommunications company to Apple. She’s been dating Trent Worth, an executive at the same company, and during a dinner date, he proposes that they get an EED to connect them as a prelude to getting engaged and tells her he’s got them on a waiting list with the doctor that performs the surgery. Briddey isn’t sure how to break the news to her very Irish, meddlesome family, as she knows they likely won’t approve. On the other hand everyone at work is thrilled with the idea (their gossip grapevine is a bit scary) except for the resident eccentric basement dweller and tech genius C.B. Schwartz. He’s always in his lab where he’s working on the latest innovations for cell phones, and he has a warning for Briddey – that if she goes ahead with the surgery, the results might not be what she expects. With all the ways people are too connected, the last thing she should want, says C.B, is to be more connected to someone through a controversial surgery.

But Briddey isn’t interested in C.B.’s thoughts on the matter. Trent loves her and she loves him and this is just another step forward in their relationship. When a cancellation lets Briddey and Trent get the surgery right away, Briddey wakes up from the anaesthesia, and experimentally says hello mentally. She is answered with a wave of delight and relief and hears a voice speaking back to her. But when she asks if it’s Trent, the voice goes silent. Speaking with a nurse, she finds out that Trent is still in recovery, and is reminded again that it takes twenty-four hours or longer for a connection to occur. But when, a few hours later, she reaches out telepathically, she again gets a response, and realizes to her dismay and horror that the person she is communicating with, in a telepathic manner that isn’t supposed to be possible, isn’t Trent after all.

The story then deals with the aftermath of the surgery, Briddey’s relationships with her co-workers, family, friends and Trent, and what it’s like to be suddenly telepathic and to hear voices around her. Telling someone you’ve started hearing voices is a fast track to a mental hospital so she knows that has to keep her secret yet find a way to live with the cacophony of thoughts she can hear around her. From one revelation to another, both good and distressing, Briddey learns some surprising things that forever change her life.

The story feels very realistic in terms of the everyday technology and the social media and apps that are used all the time. Briddey has one sister, Mary Clare, who has a nine- year-old daughter, Maeve. Mary Clare is constantly believing things she reads on the internet (much of it misinformation) and her very tech-savvy daughter reads and watches things her mother disapproves of, causing friction in their relationship. Briddey’s other sister, Kathleen, is single and is constantly meeting men on dating apps such as Lattes’n’Luv, It’s Only Brunch, and RollTheDice, but to date, hasn’t found a good connection. Then there is her aunt, Oona, who belongs to a Daughters of Ireland club who keeps trying to set Briddey up with an Irish lad.

The Irish family storyline is on the weaker side (there’s a lot of back-and-forth between the family members that doesn’t have much purpose) and there are parts of the story that feel belabored and overly long. But overall, the concept and the aftermath of Briddey’s surgery are really interesting to read and believe it or not, there is a happy and satisfying end to the story (though it does get all wrapped up pretty quickly). If you’ve never read Connie Willis and find our current technology both a blessing and curse, you should give Crosstalk a try.

(And if time travel sci-fi interests you, Doomsday Book, Blackout, and All Clear are three of my favourites by this author).