Goddess In The Machine by Lora Beth Johnson

 

Andra was one of the million inhabitants of Earth chosen to relocate to another planet.  She is the daughter of one of the main scientists and her family is friends with the founder of the institute that is heading up the project.  The plan is to put everyone in suspended animation for a hundred years and when they wake up they will be at their location.

But when Andra wakes up she can tell something is wrong.  She has been asleep for a thousand years.  Even more surprising, when she emerges the people around her fall to the ground and start calling her Goddess.  Andra knows she is just a teenager, not anyone's deity.  She is in a desert not the green resource rich planet the project had planned to go to.

She meets two men.  One is a leader of the populace and the other his friend.  They give Andra some answers but she can tell they know more.  Zhade, the leader, takes her to the domed capital city where the Emperor is sometimes friendly to her and sometimes aggressive.  He is a mercurial youth who has a cruel streak.  That doesn't reassure Andra when she discovers there were two Goddesses before her--and that both were sacrificed to appease the population who sees the city dome breaking down and are looking for someone to blame.  Can Andra save her own life and those around her and discover what went wrong on the mission?

This is a debut novel for Lora Beth Johnson.  I liked the premise much more than I expected to and there are massive surprises along the way.  This is YA science fiction and Andra is the typical teenager, surprisingly adaptive and creative one moment and infuriating with attitude the next.  This book is recommended for young adult and science fiction readers.