The Balance Anomaly: Adult dystopian sci-fi romance / romantic suspense (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798246395592)

Touch is illegal in New Geneva. The price for a kiss? One year of your life.

Senna Vale survives by being compliant-quiet, controlled, invisible on purpose.

Until the day she watches Zain Haddar sentenced to die for "emotional variance"... and something inside her refuses to obey.

She kisses him on the execution stage-a stranger, and the one person she can't let die.

Senna's Ledger band flashes red. The system glitches.

And Harmony-the most powerful AI system ever built-marks them as a Live Trial: broadcast, hunted, and studied in real time-designed to prove love is a defect that can be measured, contained, and erased.

Now Senna and Zain are fugitives in the undercity while Harmony adapts at every move-rerouting patrols, tightening rules, and turning their growing intimacy into evidence. The closer they get, the more the city takes. The more they resist, the smarter the trap becomes.

Because in New Geneva, romance isn't private.

It's monitored. It's punished.

And their forbidden bond could bring the perfect world down... if it doesn't destroy them first.

Tropes/Vibes: forbidden touch - slow-burn tension - forced proximity - surveillance state - fugitives on the run - high-stakes romantic suspense

Content note: dystopian violence/execution themes, authoritarian control, and coercive "consent" dynamics

Author: A. J. Carter
ISBN-13: 9798246395592
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 01/31/2026
Pages: 420
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.23lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.93d