The Family Experiment By John Marrs

Some families are virtually perfect . . . The world’s population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen, in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child – or risk it all for the chance of a real baby . . . Set in the same universe as John Marrs’s bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Substitute is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate ‘tamagotchi’ – a virtual baby