Read more
In post-atomic New York, one girl is selected to pay off her mother''s debt by dying--or killing--in a televised Gauntlet but instead falls in love with the assassin, in this sapphic stand-alone postapocalyptic romance with a Hunger Games twist, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and The Last of Us . Inesa has spent her whole life feeling like a land animal in a drowning world. She''s grown up in a city that''s sinking, after an Atomic Age claimed much of the country and left New Amsterdam amongst rising waters, buoyed only by Caerus, a company that sells everything from food to electricity, all on credit. And Inesa knows the price of going into the red, so she refuses to take on any debt. Melinoe works for Caerus, but not in their warehouse. Her job is to give the citizens of New Amsterdam hope and spectacle as a so-called Angel, by hunting and killing those who fall too deeply into debt in the televised Gauntlet. After nearly failing to complete her last mission, she has to prove her worth or she''ll have her memory wiped and live the rest of her life as an empty shell, unwilling wife to some executive twice her age. When Inesa''s mom secretly incurs over 500,000 credits of debt and nominates Inesa as a Lamb for the next Gauntlet, her only hope is to run--into Drowned County, the irradiated land between New Amsterdam and the Dominion of New England. With Melinoe tracking her, and mutated animals--and humans--attacking, Inesa will have to adapt or die. If she survives, Melinoe''s life is over. That is, until they both end up stranded, injured, and isolated, and their only hope for survival is each other. When the cameras are off, can they become more than just an Angel and a Lamb? And what happens when they both want to do more than just survive? From Ava Reid, author of A Study in Drowning , comes a vital look at the cost of living, the many debts we incur, and the love we must fight for, all set in an eerily dark mirror of our own world. ...
Summary
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.
- Indie Next Pick
- CBC Hot off the Press Pick
- CCBC Choices 2026
- NAIBA Book of the Year Finalist
