STATE OF WONDER

State of Wonder is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss, a tale that leads into the very heart of darkness and then shows us what lies on the other side.

Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a pharmaceutical company, is sent to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug. Nothing about the assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the jungle in hopes of finding Dr. Swenson as well as answers to troubling questions about her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past.

Once found, Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, remains as ruthless and uncompromising as she was in her earlier days at Johns Hopkins. With a combination of science and subterfuge, she dominates her research team and the natives she is studying with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices to be made are the ones she asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina. 

 
In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.