CHERUB author pens stand-alone novel

Robert Muchamore, author of the bestselling CHERUB series, has written his first stand-alone novel, Killer T, which will be published by Hot Key Books in September 2018.

His new book will be set in the near future, when genetic engineering is starting to change the world.... A novel for our times, Killer T is also an unsentimental and powerful love story, spanning ten years. Robert Muchamore said: "Killer T is my first stand-alone novel. I wanted to emulate the epic scale of classic YA books like Junk, The Hunger Games and Noughts and Crosses, with the drama that only a truly self-contained story can provide. "I wanted it to be a believable fantasy like all my previous books, and to build the kind of immersive environment that makes Star Wars and Game of Thrones so engrossing for fans." Robert's Cherub series was first published in 2004 and since his books have sold over 12.5 million copies worldwide - including 2.9m in the UK - and have been translated into 24 languages. KILLER T by Robert Muchamore: Harry is a lonely Brit in his first term at a Las Vegas high school. Charlie is perfect girlfriend material. Smart, sexy, and wanted for mixing a batch of explosives that blew up a football player... It's the very near future and genetic engineering is starting to change the world. Hoods are stepping out with powerful genetically-modified dogs. Kids can't play out because there are strange new wasps, with purple stripes and a fatal sting. But an illegal gene therapy clinic will sort you a permanent tan and bodybuilder physique for a few thousand bucks. Harry and Charlie drift apart as their teens progress. After a spell behind bars, Charlie finds herself working in an underground gene editing lab, while Harry becomes a playboy, putting parties before schoolwork and running a website that means he learns more than his teachers. They're drawn back together as a deadly synthetic virus sweeps the world. Killer T kills 90% of the people who catch it, and its creators are demanding $10 billion to release the genetic blueprint for a vaccine. Five years after they first met, Harry and Charlie finally get together. But Killer T has wiped out half of the global population, and they must survive in a world of hyperinflation, food shortages and bands of genetically-enhanced thugs.