They Could Be Saviors

by Diana Colleen

What if the only way to save the planet is to kidnap the billionaires destroying it?

For readers who grew up on The Hunger Games and are ready for a quieter but no less daring confrontation of power, They Could Be Saviors turns the rebellion on its head. Instead of youth rising against authority, the world’s most powerful men are the ones taken captive. But they're not fighting each other. They're fighting their own consciences.

It imagines what happens when those at the very top are stripped of control and made to face the future they’ve helped endanger.

Five billionaires awaken in captivity, cut off from their empires and stripped of control. Among them is Josh Latham, CEO of the world's largest corporation, who built his fortune on exploitation while the planet burned. Their captors are not soldiers but healers: a collective of women determined to break through their defenses using psychedelic therapy.

At the center is Mel, a grief-hardened visionary who believes that only by dismantling the egos of these men can they be compelled to face the climate crisis they’ve ignored, and perhaps begin to repair it. But transformation is messy, especially when it's forced -- and if the men refuse to change, they may never walk free again.

They Could Be Saviors is a hopeful, near-future novel that explores billionaires confronting the damage they've done, climate justice, and the unpredictable road to redemption. Blending the transformative tension of Nine Perfect Strangers with the intimacy of character-driven speculative fiction, it asks:

What would it take to make the world’s wealthiest men finally fight for everyone, not just the elite? And does the end justify the means?

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery, Speculative Fiction

328 pages, Paperback

Published January 8, 2026

About the author

Diana Colleen is a Canadian, Seattle-based psychedelic facilitator and writer whose work blends consciousness, healing, and social change.

After profound transformation through psychedelic-assisted therapy, she developed a deep commitment to storytelling as a tool for challenging entrenched systems of power. Her work explores what humanity could become if empathy, contribution, and accountability replaced ego and competition.

Through fiction, she examines the climate crisis, billionaire accountability, and the inner work required for meaningful change.

Reviews

[Matthew Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This most definitely is not just speculative fiction. It’s a moral reckoning wrapped in psychological suspense, social critique, and razor-sharp imagination. This novel feels urgently alive, resonating powerfully in a world choking on climate collapse, unchecked greed, and public apathy. It asks the question that so many are afraid to voice: What if the people with the most power were forced to truly understand the damage they’ve done?

Collen’s greatest triumph is her balance of weight and momentum. The themes are heavy, forced change, moral accountability, the ethics of wealth, and ecological responsibility, but the story never buckles under them. Instead, it remains gripping, tense, and deeply entertaining, with relentless psychological pressure and stakes that feel disturbingly real.

The premise alone is audacious brilliance: a sisterhood of therapists kidnaps five billionaires. Not to steal their money but to rewire their desires. Using psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca, substances rooted in Indigenous traditions and known to heighten empathy, they attempt the ultimate intervention: curing “billionaireism.” One unforgettable moment is Mel’s monkey-and-banana analogy, illustrating how hoarding abundance while others starve is not success but defect. It’s simple, devastating, and unforgettable.

What makes They Could Be Saviors truly exceptional is its courage. Collen never softens her message, yet she leaves room for discomfort, resistance, and the possibility of redemption. You can feel how deeply she cares. Every single page radiates with conviction and urgency.

This is a bold, brave, and deeply inspirational novel. One that doesn’t just entertain. It demands reflection.

[Amanda Felton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you LBT for having me on this review tour and for my gifted copy of this epub.

Ok I have to say this is a book I will probably buy because I love the cover so much. Shhh just don’t tell my husband lol.

You know I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book I really wasn’t this was so different than anything I’ve read before the idea of the book so cool and yet why haven’t we done this in real life type of thinking. We follow or I guess could say the book is about 5 billionaires who are captured and they are to help get to solve the problem or issue of carbon emissions I mean why not start with the rich to fix the issues I mean it’s an interesting read and for me I found to be incredibly intense at times. I mean these men are being held by women and I mean they are healers but they use real human connection though to help try to fix the mess. My mind was literally blown away by the detail in this book and the writing style !!

Mel I think is my favorite character she is the leader and she is rough but I think cause she is just so struck with grief and it’s made her hard. But she is real and raw and totally relatable and just hard to forget.

Overall I did enjoy the book it was something so different than anything I’ve read before!! I will be checking out more from this author for sure !!

[Keely Kovacevic · Rating 1 out of 5]

17% in and the entire book has been poorly written exposition.

The premise of this book was interesting to me - a secret organisation kidnaps a group of influential billionaires to solve the climate crisis - but the execution was dragging. All characters were one dimensional and the writing was stiff.

I have no interest in completing this and will DNF it at 17%

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

📚They Could Be Saviors
✍🏻Diana Colleen
Blurb:
What if the only way to save the planet is to kidnap the billionaires destroying it?

For readers who grew up on The Hunger Games and are ready for a quieter but no less daring confrontation of power, They Could Be Saviors turns the rebellion on its head. Instead of youth rising against authority, the world’s most powerful men are the ones taken captive. But they're not fighting each other. They're fighting their own consciences.

It imagines what happens when those at the very top are stripped of control and made to face the future they’ve helped endanger.

Five billionaires awaken in captivity, cut off from their empires and stripped of control. Among them is Josh Latham, CEO of the world's largest corporation, who built his fortune on exploitation while the planet burned. Their captors are not soldiers but healers: a collective of women determined to break through their defenses using psychedelic therapy.

At the center is Mel, a grief-hardened visionary who believes that only by dismantling the egos of these men can they be compelled to face the climate crisis they’ve ignored, and perhaps begin to repair it. But transformation is messy, especially when it's forced -- and if the men refuse to change, they may never walk free again.

They Could Be Saviors is a hopeful, near-future novel that explores billionaires confronting the damage they've done, climate justice, and the unpredictable road to redemption. Blending the transformative tension of Nine Perfect Strangers with the intimacy of character-driven speculative fiction, it asks:

What would it take to make the world’s wealthiest men finally fight for everyone, not just the elite? And does the end justify the means?
My Thoughts:'
They Could Be Saviors is a heavy themes dealing with accountability of wealth, morality, economy and climate.
Diana Colleen speaks of billionaires as hoarding, classifying it as mental illness. The book takes place almost entirely within one building, in just a handful of rooms, lending the novel a tense, claustrophobic quality. The story follows several men, all billionaires, who have been kidnapped by a group of self-described healers and facilitators. The facilitators hope to help the men see the error of their ways, and in doing so, save the world.Diana Colleen’s debut novel is one of those books that quietly gets under your skin and stays with you.
Thanks NetGalley, PLH Press and Author Diana Colleen for the advanced copy of "They Could Be Saviors" I am leaving my voluntary review in appreciation.
#NetGalley
#PLHPress
#DianaColleen
#TheyCouldBeSaviors
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⚠️Trigger Warnings: Confinement, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Self harm, Grief, Medical trauma and Murder

[Julie Snider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Colleen’s near-future speculative novel, THEY COULD BE SAVIORS, is based on the premise that billionaires held captive by a sisterhood of psychedelic therapists can overcome greed and begin a transformation that can lead the world away from climate crisis. Colleen plants her seeds on fertile ground. Many of us yearn for the wealthiest among us to understand that they have the power to wreak good from the corrupt and ego-based structures they’ve created.
The characters in the novel are painted in three dimensions, which makes them believable and interesting to follow. Josh Latham, CEO of the world’s largest corporation, begins as a narcissistic man whose primary interests are luring the attractive women around him into his clutches and capturing the amazing technology the sisterhood is using for his own corporation to use. Teleported to a house in Saskatchewan, watching women walk through mirrored walls, he begins to wonder how he, too, can own a piece of the knowledge behind the marvels he is experiencing. Angry at being held captive, his reactions are muted by the psychedelics being pumped into his bloodstream via a special bracelet. The other billionaires have their own messy roads to redemption.
Conversely, we follow the thoughts of Cath, one of the women responsible for the billionaire abduction. She bemoans the morally gray territory she’s being asked to inhabit, her complicity in holding the men as prisoners for the greater good. The author paints the backgrounds of each of the women in bright colors. One a former “sister wife” who was forced to obey the commands of the men in charge of her cult. Another a former prisoner herself, rough around the edges. And the leader, Mel, an alcoholic who struggles with addiction while maintaining control of the situation at hand. As the author notes on the back cover of the book, “…transformation is messy, especially when it’s coerced. And as tensions arise, the question remains: do the ends justify the means?”
THEY COULD BE SAVIORS is a novel right for these times. The fate of our planet will be determined by flawed actors on the world stage. Whether the climate crisis, homelessness, and global famine can be solved by the same humans responsible for the problems remains to be seen. I recommend this book for anyone interested in climate fiction and believe that Ms. Colleen has done the topic justice.

[READER VIEWS · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely idea Diana Colleen presents in her book, They Could Be Saviors. Billionaires are actively making the planet unlivable, so the solution is to kidnap and force them to come up with a solution to climate change, with the aid of mind-altering psychedelics, of course. Colleen says in her authors’ note that the idea for this book came to her during a meditation session after her own psychedelic therapy, and I have to say, I think she’s onto something.

They Could Be Saviors introduces the idea that the greed of a billionaire can be changed through forced and monitored use of MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, and ayahuasca. In the novel, a group of the world’s richest and most powerful men is brought together to a remote compound by a group of women determined to change their minds in ways that maybe aren’t that ethical, but might just be necessary. One by one, the billionaires have their awakenings, not without a fight that at times turns dangerous. Will they solve the climate disaster before the world becomes unsafe to live in? Or are they too caught up in their greed, their space colonization, and billion-dollar businesses to care about the rest of the world?

It’s an idealized situation that Colleen writes about. Because of course, all it would take to solve the world’s problems is to change the minds of the ones who hold the most power. In a world where individual people feel powerless as to where we as a species are heading, it’s cathartic to read about an alternate universe where these problems are being worked on, where there’s hope instead of doomerism. It really is an astounding book, a solid idea with a meticulously executed manner of storytelling, and I commend Colleen for writing it.

As the author says in her final note, billionaires are like dragons, hoarding wealth from the world, not helping the large majority of its people who are suffering one way or another. The world in They Could Be Saviors shows what happens if these dragons got a dose of empathy, and effectively demonstrates what a new world could look like.

[Heather Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

*2.75 stars*. I really really wanted to like this book more than I did. It had a super interesting premise and a unique way of trying to fix climate change and holding the most powerful of the world’s billionaires responsible for their crime of destroying the world but also responsible for fixing the destruction they have caused. But…….the characters, the women and the men felt so cliched and didn’t seem to have much depth or layers to them. And that kept pulling me out of the story because I kept getting annoyed. I would have liked more world building too. I think this book just needed more developing overall. Kind of a disappointing read for me unfortunately. (But man, that cover was amazing!)

“What if the only way to save the planet is to kidnap the billionaires destroying it?
For readers who grew up on The Hunger Games and are ready for a quieter but no less daring confrontation of power, They Could Be Saviors turns the rebellion on its head. Instead of youth rising against authority, the world’s most powerful men are the ones taken captive. But they're not fighting each other. They're fighting their own consciences.
It imagines what happens when those at the very top are stripped of control and made to face the future they’ve helped endanger.
Five billionaires awaken in captivity, cut off from their empires and stripped of control. Among them is Josh Latham, CEO of the world's largest corporation, who built his fortune on exploitation while the planet burned. Their captors are not soldiers but healers: a collective of women determined to break through their defenses using psychedelic therapy.” (From the book blurb)

[Victoria Gilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

They Could Be Saviors asks a provocative question from its opening pages, but what surprised me most was that it isn't really a novel about billionaires—it's a novel about accountability, grief, and whether genuine transformation is possible for people who have spent their lives insulated from consequences.

I expected an angry political thriller. Instead, I found a thoughtful, character-driven story that refuses to settle for easy heroes or villains. The premise is undeniably bold: powerful CEOs kidnapped and subjected to psychedelic therapy by women determined to force them to confront their role in the climate crisis. Yet the novel is far more interested in moral complexity than revenge.

Mel is especially compelling because her conviction is constantly tested by the ethical contradictions of her own mission. As the story unfolds, the question shifts from whether these men deserve redemption to whether redemption can ever be forced. That tension kept me engaged far more than any plot twist.

What also stood out was the book's willingness to explore climate change through psychology rather than catastrophe. Instead of focusing solely on environmental collapse, it examines power, privilege, trauma, denial, and the emotional barriers that prevent meaningful change. That gives the novel an intimacy that's rare in speculative fiction.

Whether readers agree with the characters' methods or not, They Could Be Saviors sparks the kind of conversations that linger long after the final page. It's an ambitious, timely novel for readers who enjoy speculative fiction that challenges assumptions rather than simply confirming them.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five of the world's top billionaires are captured using new technology and brought to a concealed healing center in Canada. These five men have not only accumulated most of the world's wealth but have also significantly contributed to the decline of Earth's health. At the healing center, a group of determined women hopes to help the men change their ways and collaborate to solve climate change. However, first they must heal themselves and believe in the cause. The women plan to use a series of healing drugs, meditation and therapy to guide them.

They Could Be Saviors is a slow paced, quiet confrontation focused on a gradual change in perspective. I really liked the premise of the story: bringing billionaires responsible for large portions of carbon emissions to try and solve the problem using their skill sets. Most of the story focused on deprogramming the men using drugs, meditation, time and therapy. This focus drew attention to the characters, both the male billionaires and the women trying to help them, keeping the focus on the power of mindfulness, trauma processing, and therapeutic drug use rather than on climate change. While the characters' transformations and reactions to the therapies were interesting, I wish there was more focus on climate change itself—specifically, helping the men understand the problem that they were contributing to and how they could actively help solve this complex problem. Overall, a unique story of healing and change.

This book was received for free in exchange for an honest review.

[meghin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has some pretty heavy themes dealing with accountability of wealth, morality, economy, and climate. Although heavy and sometimes tense, I found this novel to be entertaining and vulnerable in the best way. The issues written are very real and this book is absolutely going to open your mind and provoke conversations that you’ll want to have with not only others but yourself. I love the group of girls’ friendship and all of them as individuals. The characters are well written - not just the women in control, but also the men whom they’ve kidnapped. Yes, kidnapped! The men are all billionaires, but they weren’t taken for their money. There’s use of some really innovative technology as well as psychedelics to uproot an intervention among the wealthy men. Their brains are to be rewired essentially; reading it will be an unforgettable experience and I believe it will lead to a self reflective journey within the reader. The amount of thought and urgency in this novel is truly life changing to me. I found Colleen to be very inspirational and brave in writing this. I highlighted so many words and saved so many pages. I honestly would have normally skipped over a political fiction but I decided to give it a chance as part of a New Year’s resolution and I’m so glad that I was given the opportunity to read and share this uniqueness with you.
Thank you to the author for the physical gifted copy and Love Books Tours for the digital gifted copy!

[Shireen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

I'm finding it difficult to properly convey my feelings about this story. Overall it was very well written and conversationally easy to follow. The premise itself is super intriguing but I can't say I'm fully onboard with the actions taken by the women running the project, however much I may agree with their end goal. Like, it just seems so far outside the realm of possibility to transform the minds of this handful of male billionaires. Parts of it feel completely grounded in reality and others are such rose-coloured glass, pie-in-the-sky dreams that it honestly took me out of the story a few times. I so desperately want to believe that this kind of transformative pharmacological reality is possible but it I guess it will remain firmly in the realm of science fiction for now.

Thanks to NetGalley, author Diana Colleen, and BooksGoSocial for granting me access to a free digital ARC of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own and are provided here voluntarily.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 rounded down)

They Could Be Saviors had me hooked for most of its runtime.

I was genuinely invested in the story, the premise, and the unraveling of everything going on. It gave me strong Nine Perfect Strangers vibes-the kind of setup where you know something is off, and you’re just waiting for it all to snap into place.

And for a while, it really works.

The tension builds, the mystery deepens, and I found myself fully along for the ride, eager to see how everything would come together.

Unfortunately… the ending didn’t quite deliver.

After all that buildup, it felt rushed and a little too neat, like the story suddenly remembered it needed to wrap things up and hit the exit. The resolution didn’t have the same weight or impact as the journey leading up to it, which made it more disappointing than satisfying.

It’s one of those books where I can clearly see why people enjoy it. I almost loved it.

But the ending took it from something that could have been great to something that was just… good.

And sometimes that’s the most frustrating kind of read

[Stephen Z. Scheel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started the book, I thought the idea had some potential. This book went above and beyond the potential I saw. I am a sci-fi buff and this has a little of that but is not a sci-fi. It more than makes up for that with a very original story line. When the billionaires are abducted, I thought hell yeah, get em. But in a day of chaos and revenge in the real world, it is nice to realize that the billionaires weren’t bad people. They just lost touch with what’s important and who they were as you go on the psychedelic journey with them and you connect with everyone in the story. I did not want to put this down and in the end, I think we all could use a little psychedelic therapy in our life. For now, I’ll just have to settle with living through their journey as I await and pray for a sequel.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Colleen’s debut novel is a stunner! Saving the world from -fill in the blank- is not a new concept, but when it’s the climate change crisis that is upon us, it’s the real deal, and we are all invested in the outcome. The author weaves her words easily whether describing the characters or the settings, and before I knew it, the pages simply turned themselves. I found myself thinking throughout, how can we get this book into the hands of the people who have the wherewithal to make the changes? Would it be possible to get it directly to the zillionaires? Would it be to make it into a film for mass consumption? Diana has given us plenty to thing about and hope for in They Could be Saviors. I highly recommend.

[Melanie Smithson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bold book for our times. Addressing the issues of climate control and "billionairism", and the drastic measures one might take for the greater good of all, They Could Be Saviors, got me thinking. I appreciate how the author frames the issue as a mental health disorder (hoarding), making billionaires seem more human and relatable to the rest of us. Employing mind expansion practices and substances may seem drastic, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
Colleen's writing and storytelling abilities make for an enjoyable and provocative read. One that has stayed with me.

[Calista Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Colleen’s prose is calm but piercing, allowing the themes of climate justice, accountability, and redemption to resonate long after the final page. Fans of character-driven speculative fiction will appreciate the quiet intensity, while readers who grew up with dystopian rebellion narratives will find this a mature, introspective evolution of the genre.

[Cat]

They Could Be Saviors is a bold and thought-provoking near-future novel that reimagines climate fiction through a psychological and ethical lens. Diana Colleen crafts a compelling narrative that challenges power, accountability, and transformation, delivering a conceptually rich story grounded in tension, introspection, and moral complexity.

[Paige D · Rating 5 out of 5]

They Could Be Saviors is a bold and thought-provoking novel that reimagines power, accountability, and the path to meaningful change. Diana Colleen crafts a compelling narrative that blends speculative fiction with emotional depth, offering a fresh perspective on climate justice and human responsibility. A timely and engaging read that challenges readers to reflect long after the final page.

[Julia Caine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has shown be the only way to make men go to therapy is to kidnap them

[Terry Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

The plot is ridiculous and the writing is so amateurish that it made me laugh in several places.
Don't waste your time or money on this smug and didactic drivel.

[Mykle McKiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping, thought-provoking mix of psychedelics, power, and redemption.

They Could Be Saviors hooked me with curiosity about psychedelics potential for self-help. The story starts as a speculative thriller about holding billionaires accountable, but it turns into something more human. It is a novel about what it actually takes to change people who think they don't need to change.

The premise sounds out there but plausible. A group of billionaires coerced into psychedelic therapy to strip away their egos and change their behavior.

The writing is sharp and pulls you in. The characters, especially Mel, are layered, authentic, and relatably flawed. The therapy scenes balance science and spirituality without losing their grip on reality. The pacing makes it difficult to put down.

This book breaks two big myths: that billionaires can’t be touched, and that freedom means doing whatever you want. Real freedom comes from connection and responsibility — to each other and to the planet.

It’s rare for a book to entertain and make you question your place in the world. If you like stories that make you think They Could Be Saviors delivers.