Villanelle lives! In the wake of the Killing Eve TV show, I promised to write a new adventure for our heroines. The novel is being serialised on Substack, and it's free.
#PANIC is a wildly entertaining coming-of-age tale from Luke Jennings, bestselling author of the Killing Eve novels.
Jaleesa, Kai, Ilya and Dani are online best friends, and superfans of the hit TV show City Of Night. Fantasising about the show in their chatroom, they find an escape from their troubled small-town lives. Everything changes when Chloe, make-up artist to the show’s star Alice Temple, enters the chat.
When Chloe tells them Alice is in danger the four resolve to save her, and make their way to California. But fantasy is quickly overtaken by reality. Alice’s troubles, they discover, will shine the spotlight on all of them. And not in a good way. On the run across the American South with one of the most famous actresses in the world, the fans must evade the police, the Russian mafia and the Legion, an absurd but terrifying new far-right movement. Can they keep running for long enough to uncover the truth about Alice, and discover themselves in the process?
#PANIC is a thriller, a love letter to fandom, and an empowering tale of young adults embracing their identities and fighting back in a world that has always tried to marginalize them.
Bookseller, Editor's Choice
"Buckle up for a roller-coaster ride in this adventure from the mind that brought us the Villanelle books . . . Exploring fandom, identity and far-right movements, this is a richly imagined, character-driven thriller."
