The Freedom League’s numbers have dwindled to three – but leader Unicorn knows his team isn’t finished yet. The turning point comes with Russell, a boy with bright red hair and a genetic variant ability to start fires. He’s the first of an influx of new members who will take the League into the future.
Judith and Wil are child prodigies – Judith in physics and electronics, and Wil in medicine. They have another thing in common – they are both genetic variants. And another thing – they both have fiery red hair. They are drawn to one another as their destinies intertwine, but the course of true love doesn’t always run smoothly!
Richard is not a variant. He’s an Olympic athlete who has picked up useful knowledge from his unusual friends to add to his own natural abilities. A chance encounter with a dying alien throws him into a Freedom League mission in which his skills are put to the ultimate test, along with theirs.
The Freedom League’s arch-enemy, the super-villain Obsidian, wants his family fortune all to himself. One person stands in his way – his niece, Fiona. Fiona, devastated by a family tragedy and her failure to get in to her first choice university, is miserable and has few friends. When she realises her brother’s death was no accident, and his killer is also after her, she fears it may be too late to gather allies around her and learn how to use her own genetic variant powers.
General Information
Pages: 337
Published: 30 September 2016
ISBN: 978-1537750699
Themes
- Superheroes
- Romance
- Accepting or rejecting the call to adventure
- Olympic games/athletics
- Family rifts
- Time travel
- Prodigies/gifted children
- Secrets
- Difference/diversity
- Homosexuality
First Page
Silhouetted against the flickering glow of the flames was a boy. He gazed at the inferno as if in a trance, and seemed surprised when the fireman spoke to him. ‘Come along, lad. You can’t stay here. Get along home, now.’
‘Aw. Can’t I stay and watch you put the fire out?’
‘No, you can’t. It’s too dangerous. Get off with you.’
The boy shrugged and ran off, leaving firefighter Dave Smithers wondering where he’d seen the kid before. He was certainly distinctive, with that mop of curly red hair. Once seen, never forgotten. Not that Smithers had time to think about it, not with the school ablaze. There could be children trapped in there. He pushed the boy to the back of his mind and turned to the fire.
A teacher off sick had meant chess club was cancelled that evening, so by a remarkable stroke of luck, nobody had been in the building. Nobody was hurt, and thanks to the firefighters’ rapid response, the damage was minimal. It was, nonetheless, necessary to find out how the fire had started to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Smithers and a police officer, PC Jessop, returned to the scene early next morning to try and establish the cause.
Reasons not to read it
- Yet more superheroes, and they’re all new ones, not the ones we know from Marvel and DC.
- Too many people with red hair.
- Most of them are British (or Irish).
- Again they don’t live in a secret base on a space station – they are students living in halls of residence or lecturers living in suburban houses. In Birmingham, for crying out loud!
- It’s got time travel in it.
- It’s got the Olympic Games in it, and they’re not happening this year, so hardly topical.
- People go gallivanting off into space, not only to save dying worlds, but sometimes just for fun.
Book club questions
- How might being a child prodigy affect Judith’s future life?
- How might being branded a “devil possessed fire-raiser” affect Russell’s?
- Do we see any such effects manifesting in the course of the novel?
- The characters in this story hide their powers, abilities and membership of the Freedom League from outsiders, and sometimes their closest friends. Have you ever had to keep a secret from anyone close to you? How did it make you feel?
- Wil’s action to alter time and thereby save Judith’s life was condemned by the ruler of the planet. Was he right to do it? Was Zaraza’s demand that he reverse it overly harsh?
- What do you make of Jasper’s relationship with Cornelia? How sympathetic do you feel towards her?
- Fiona and Richard don’t get off to a very good start when they first meet. Why do you think they eventually warm to one another and end up falling in love?
- When Judith tells Hildy she understands what it’s like to be different, Hildy thinks Judith is talking about something else entirely. Might being gay and being a genetic variant have similar effects on people’s lives?
Gallery
Julie Howlin Author 