FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LADY MACBETH AND A STUDY IN DROWNING 'There's one
thing about Ava Reid she doesn't miss.' Sasha Peyton Smith 'You'll start saving space on your
shelf for Ava Reid.' Kendare Blake --------- The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds &
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.
