The Archer's Thread

Book excerpt: Simon Lyons can see seconds into the future. The condition is useful at work: quiet negotiations with the worst people in the world. His employers think he's quite valuable. They tolerate his abrasive personality, the result of an ability to produce everyone and everything. Simon tries hard to hide the truth from everyone: the condition is driving him insane. In desperation he runs away to Boston, the last place he remembers as home. He spends his days drinking to excess, brutalizing street punks, and failing to kill himself. That’s when he meets a young mathematics professor with an unexpected gift: around Doctor Kelly Austin, the chaos of a thousand possibilities dies away, leaving behind clarity, presence, and peace. Rediscovering this sense of normalcy is intoxicating, and rekindles his hope for cure. Simon uses all of his skill to enter's Kelly’s life, find the secret, and leave. That’s when someone from his past returns, stopping at nothing to bury his identity, the truth about his accident, and the extent of his “skill.” When shadowy figures discover that Kelly Austin may be the key to controlling the most dangerous person on earth, Simon must choose: return to a short and brutal life of violence, or risk everything for the terror of redemption. Even if you can see the future, you can never escape your past. Readers who imagine how VE Schwab would’ve written a Jack Reacher novel will devour this genre-bending thriller about sacrifice, secrets, and redemption.