No-Mod follows a young girl named Addie. Even though the most basic mods are cheap and easy enough to get, she is one of the few people in her city that are completely unmodified, and that means she is always given the worst jobs. While she works for the same church that claims modifications are the one-true-way, her un-modded nature means she has to spend her days cleaning out suicide booths until she can earn enough money to get even a basic mod.
Unfortunately for her, the daily routine she has gotten used to gets upset when a message from a friend informs her that she is suddenly being hunted. With her pet mute-cat in hand, she escapes from her small apartment and ends up in the care of two older men, Kel, a cop, and T, a former combat medic that Kel brings her to after Addie's escape leaves her badly injured. When T goes to help heal Addie, he quickly discovers something unusual about the girl and the trio decides that the best place for Addie is out of the city and in the hands of a community that could help protect her.
Meanwhile, a small gang of street rats finds a different reason to leave the city. Shane leads the group in their various tech-stealing capers, but without Zel at his side planning their operations, the group wouldn't be nearly as successful as they are. Young Cam is a tech protege that seems to be able to hack into anything they need, while Jesse rounds out the group as the muscle when things go wrong.
When a deal falls through on a potentially lucrative heist, Shane's gang decide that the best place for them to lie low is out of the city and they start heading to the same community to which Addie and her two new protectors are heading. While Shane's group and Addie's won't actually run into each other until just before reaching their shared destination, it quickly becomes apparent to the reader that the undercurrents driving both groups could have some unexpected connections, and when the two parties do finally collide and meet up with the hopeful protectors, they will have even more unexpected trials to wade through before they come through the other end.
No-Mod: The Mute-Cat Chronicles - Book 1 takes place in an interesting dystopian world, and while the anti-religious aspect of the novel might turn off some readers, it should be noted that the book doesn't seem to be against any real religion. It does dive into the creation and development of this particular church and how it was set up, primarily to help those that started the belief system, but it wouldn't be hard to draw parallels between the faith described in No-Mod and other belief structures. If anti-religious aspects turn you off in general, then this might be a book series to avoid. The church is definitely the bad guy in this book, and that is apparent from the start.
Outside of that potential sticking point though, The Mute-Cat Chronicles is an action-packed ride through a strange world filled with deadly creatures and unusual societies. It will be interesting to see where Porterfield takes the story next.
