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The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom
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The Cruelty

The Cruelty: Book #1

$28.34

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Thérèse Plummer

This audiobook uses AI narration.

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Length 12 hours 30 minutes
Language English
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The Cruelty is an action-packed young adult thriller (optioned for film by Jerry Bruckheimer) about a girl who must train as an assassin to deal with the gangsters who have kidnapped her father.

Gwendolyn's father kept his life a secret from her. When he goes missing, she's plunged into a world of assassins, spies, and criminal masterminds.

When Gwendolyn Bloom’s father vanishes, she sets off on a journey she never bargained for. Traveling under a new identity, she uncovers a disturbing truth: to bring her father back alive, she must become every bit as cruel as the men holding him captive.

This suspensful debut from Scott Bergstrom features a strong female character and nonstop, cinematic action.

Praise for The Cruelty:

"Liam Neeson’s 2008 film Taken concerned a spy who engages in mass mayhem while attempting to recover his kidnapped daughter. Bergstrom reverses this plot in his violent, well-crafted first novel. Seventeen-year-old gymnast Gwendolyn Bloom doesn’t learn that her father is a genuine spy?and not merely an overworked State Department employee?until after he is kidnapped by international gangsters, and the CIA makes little attempt to recover him . . . A grim, fast- paced tale." —Publishers Weekly

"[T]his debut novel is relentlessly paced, full of global sets, slick action...with a grim, ass-kicking antihero." —Booklist

The Cruelty is a nominee for the 2018 Edgar Award for best Young Adult book.

This program includes a bonus interview with the author.

Scott Bergstrom lives with his wife and daughters in Colorado. The Cruelty is his fiction debut.

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Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

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Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale