Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
General information
Pages: 269
Published: 14 April 2020
ISBN: 9798636139775
Themes
- Assassins/hit men
- Superheroes
- Hostage situations/Stockholm syndrome
- Love vs lust
- On off romance
- Secret societies
- Loss of a twin
- Step-families
First page
If my mother had known on the day I was born what I would become by the age of twenty-five, she’d have smothered me before I could utter my first cry.
No-one told her, so Pamela Garrett was free to surf the wave of new motherhood while my father, Rupert Garrett, returned to his exclusive club in Cambridge where he cracked open a bottle of seventy-five-year-old whiskey and toasted the arrival of his son and heir.
‘I look forward to initiating Sebastian in eighteen years’ time,’ Alasdair Cardew-Knight boomed, slapping Rupert on the back so hard that he nearly choked on his whiskey. ‘No doubt he will have inherited some of your considerable courage, talent and intelligence.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ Rupert said. ‘He’ll have every advantage, naturally. I’ve already put his name down for my old school. Douglas Black is a teacher there – he’ll make sure Sebastian gets all the early training he needs, and then he’ll come here…’
‘So you’d hope,’ Alasdair said, ‘rather than follow old Ponsonby’s kid who decided to reject Cambridge as the height of bourgeoisie and insist on going to Brighton Polytechnic.’
Reasons not to read it
- It has secret societies and assassins in it.
- The heroine is a princess.
- The hero is an assassin.
- They both have superpowers.
- They live in a country which doesn’t exist.
- Theirs is an on-off romance for much of the time.
Book club questions
- At what point do you think Sebastian falls in love with Helena? And at what point does she fall in love with him?
- What do you think happens in their lives between the final chapter and the Epilogue?
- How does losing her twin at birth affect Helena?
- How does the attempt on her life when she is ten (the scented candle incident) affect her?
- Is Jade right to send Helena to London and insist she has counselling?
- Is she right to appoint Sebastian as Helena’s bodyguard?
- Discuss how Sebastian is shaped by his father’s expectations that he will follow in his footsteps and become a Viper.
- How do you think Sebastian is affected by his parents’ divorce and their re-marriages? He connects with his half-sister Emily – what might happen if or when he meets his other step-siblings?
Gallery
Julie Howlin Author 