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by Natalie C. Parker
This riveting, superpowered adventure unveils a shadow world of Talented bounty hunters—and plumbs the nature of identity, deadly secrets, and found family.
Tru has been hiding all her life. Her parents taught her to conceal her bastion Talent: indestructible skin, muscles, and bones. In a world where Talents are common and varied, no one trusts a bastion—they're too powerful. Hiding failed to keep Tru's parents alive, but moments before their murder, Tru's mom pointed her to Logan Dire, a famed recluse assassin who adopted and trained orphaned Tru. At seventeen, she's still hiding. Not even her closest friends know her true name or Talent, or that she's balancing high school with knife and stealth training (while crushing on her BFF's older sister). When assassins interrupt a mundane babysitting job booked through BountyApp—where lethal hunters find work and babysitters for their kids—Tru flees with a one-year-old strapped to her chest and spiraling questions: Who killed her parents? Whom can she trust? What does it mean to be a bastion? And is it ever OK to kiss a girl who's trying to hunt you down? From an award-winning author comes a masterfully plotted thriller that holds character and relationship on a par with action and nail-biting suspense.
"Propulsive action beats and richly imaginative worldbuilding occasionally founder under the weight of its meta influences, which sometimes draw focus away from Tru's grappling with identity and legacy. Nevertheless, a rip-roaring climax and adrenaline-pumping resolution will have readers on the edge of their seats, eager for more." —Publishers Weekly
"A heart-pumping, high-stakes ride." —Kirkus Reviews
"While the plot does rely on some common YA tropes, Parker's fresh characters and inventive worldbuilding elevate the story." —School Library Journal
This information about The Assassin's Guide to Babysitting was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Natalie C. Parker is an acclaimed author of books for young adults, including the Seafire trilogy and the duology Beware the Wild and Behold the Bones. She lives outside Kansas City with her wife.
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