by Ava Reid
HarperCollins
3/4/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9780063211551
The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this stand-alone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.
Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt--enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus's livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb's Gauntlet.
Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.
When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs--the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she's had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother she might stand a chance of staying alive.
For Melinoë, this is a game she can't afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.
As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there's more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she's capable of more than killing.
And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.
Target age: 14 and up
Reviews:
"In this brilliantly imagined work, the impoverished are terrorized not only by the environment but by the government, and women's bodies are mutated to men's ideals. This masterful queer narrative encourages readers to question messages around gender and sexuality. A thrilling, page-turning must-read: prescient and necessary, impressive and disturbing." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Stunningly crafted, Reid displays an eye for human connection with her enemies-to-lovers Sapphic romance and portrayal of complex familial relationships. Inesa and Mel are thoughtful foils to each other, their characteristics bleeding together as they survive the Gauntlet and the painfully realistic depiction of the ramifications of climate change. Fraught with social commentary as well, Reid's tale touches on the dangers of debt and late-stage capitalism, the addiction to screens and technology, and the realities of corporations buying out governments. Suzanne Collins fans, meet your new favorite dystopia." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Reid is well regarded for her lyrical writing and nuanced characters; here she paints a vivid portrait of a world fallen to climate change and capitalism, juxtaposed against the ways love is redemptive. VERDICT A dark dystopian novel for readers craving something more mature than The Hunger Games. Perfect for high school collections." -- School Library Journal (starred review)
About the Author:
Ava Reid is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning, A Theory of Dreaming, Lady Macbeth, Juniper & Thorn, and The Wolf and the Woodsman. Her books have been published in over fourteen territories. She lives in the New York area.