{
    "id": 518929,
    "slug": "fable-for-the-end-of-the-world-ava-reid",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Fable for the End of the World",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.\n\nBy encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.\n\nInesa 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\u2014enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus\u2019s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb\u2019s Gauntlet.\n\nMelino\u00eb 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.\n\nWhen Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs\u2014the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she\u2019s 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.\n\nFor Melino\u00eb, this is a game she can\u2019t 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.\n\nAs Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there\u2019s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she\u2019s capable of more than killing.\n\nAnd both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 384,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": null,
    "publication_date_latest": "2025-03-04",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T14:39:50+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-28T00:43:05+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4570,
        "slug": "harpercollins",
        "name": "HarperCollins",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T12:35:03+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:11:45+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 319666,
            "slug": "ava-reid-2",
            "key_names": "Reid",
            "names_before_key": "Ava",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": []
}