MY REVIEW
In The Emotional Collector: Awakening by Richard French, we meet Senior Collector Emma Thorne. Emma is the state’s most powerful weapon…until she opens herself up to a four year old’s feelings of love. She has been conditioned to collect feelings, which are considered waste, not to empathize or sympathize. Now she was beginning to question her purpose.
Evan Cross is part of the resistance. These are the kind of characters I find most interesting. They come across as real, fighting against suppression, wearing a white hat. He is immune to the dampening technology. And, of course, anyone that knows me, knows I love a good villain and I was surprised that it was Emma’s mother that surprised me the most.
The state had been updating the dampening technology, increasing the efficiency, causing the planet to die at a faster rate. Emma begins to think that her real purpose was not to destroy the planet, but to save it.
The Emotional Collector made me think of Avatar, how everything was connected. By killing emotions, they were killing the planet.
The state wants to study Emma, and we know what that means…nothing good for her. And…it’s her mother leading the way. She can save the people and the planet, but at what cost to her? Is the Awakening a good thing, or will it doom the planet and everyone on it? Doesn’t really matter because the state had begun Project Terminus and it would permanently cut out human feeling within hours, killing the plane anyway.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Emotion Collector, but I loved it. The more characters I met, the more characters there were to love and others to try to understand their motivations. It’s one of those things, just because you can do something, should you?
I love this thought provoking novel. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I love novels that surprise me, and I was surprised at the twists and turns that Richard French threw my way.
GOODREADS BLURB
In a world where emotions are harvested as hazardous waste, an elite Collector absorbs a child’s love—and awakens.Senior Collector Emma Thorne is the state’s most precise weapon until a four-year-old’s pure love fractures her conditioning. When her collection field fails on an immune stranger, everything she believes crumbles.
Emma discovers the brutal emotions aren’t waste—they’re living energy linked to planetary health, and the Council’s “peace” is killing the world. Her mother is the architect of suppression. Project Terminus will permanently sever human feeling within hours.
For readers who devoured Delirium and The Giver, but crave the hard science and hope of Nexus.
To save humanity, she must sacrifice everything she is to restore the world’s heart.
- Genre: Apocalyptic, Cyberpunk, Dystopian, Fantasy, Fiction, Metaphysical, Science Fiction
- 393 pages, Kindle Edition
- Expected publication November 17, 2025 by Indie Pen Press
ABOUT RICHARD FRENCH
Richard French writes at the intersection of technology, transformation, and storytelling. A former executive at Oracle and Nokia, and a serial startup leader, Richard brings decades of leadership experience to his books.
His non-fiction works include Daniel as a Blueprint for Navigating Ethical Dilemmas, The Journaling Mastery Series, and The Journaling Prompts Series. In fiction, his Convergence Series explores quantum physics, high fantasy, and human connection in richly imagined worlds.
Richard lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he writes full time and races GT cars on weekends. He believes in challenging limits—on the track, in business, and on the page.
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