Rating: 5 Stars

Publisher: Self Published

Genre:  Gay Romance

Tags: Told Over Time, Childhood Assassin, Emotional, Suspense. ** TW are at the end of the author’s blurb.

Length: 422 Kindle Pages

Reviewer: Kazza

Purchase At: amazon, Barbara Elsborg

Blurb:

Two boys. One deadly secret. A love worth risking everything for.

Rescued from a raging inferno as a young child, Jack is homeschooled in more than English and maths. His saviour is training him to be an assassin. But when Jack is compelled to attend an ordinary school, in an ordinary English town, his carefully controlled life unravels.

Zeph, brilliant, passionate and determined, has his eyes set on Cambridge and a future in intelligence. He has no time for distractions, at least, not until Jack turns up at his school. He’s everything Zeph has secretly longed for but he has no idea his life will never be the same again.

As boys turn into men, the cost of their connection becomes clear. Jack’s secrets are dangerous, and each time he sees Zeph, the more the two of them are at risk. Jack knows he should walk away and not look back. Is a happy-ever-after possible when his life is full of secrets and lies, disappearances and deception?

But some things are meant to be.

**Warning
Violence – this is about an assassin after all!
None of the following are major themes but occur in the story: cruelty to a child, bullying, homophobic and transphobic remarks, cancer, brief mention of eating disorder, brief mention of suicide, gambling, death of parents.

Review: 

At a fire, a six-year-old stands out the front as his house burns to the ground. His family have been violent. None of them will remain in his life after the fire. He’s approached by a man who asks if he’d like to come with him. The boy agrees. He’s to learn the name Jack because that’s his name from here on in. He’s off to Belarus and given a choice: Stay with his rescuer, Thomas, and learn to do work that can be problematic but, he’s told, is for good, or live with people who are paid to care for him with no need for problematic work. Jack guesses as best he can, given his age, that someone who isn’t being paid to care for him will probably care more. Coming from an unpleasant home, he readily accepts Thomas as his guardian and his new identity. 

I am Jack
I am Jack.
I am Jack.

Chapter two is ten years later, Jack is sixteen. He’s been homeschooled by Thomas from six. He’s culturally well-rounded, fluently multilingual, and well versed academically. He also knows how to build and defuse a bomb, escape handcuffs, scale buildings, hold his breath for an extensive period underwater, and where to hide… if and when necessary. Anything Thomas didn’t know previously, he’d bring in experts to help. Now, all of a sudden, Jack’s going to be starting at an actual school in England, Fishbourne Academy. Because, Thomas tells him, ‘there’s always more to learn if you want to stay alive.’ Jack believes this is his education around his peers. To observe them. Maybe to allow Jack some time to know what it’s like to be one. 

Zeph is already at Fishbourne Academy and is the subject of constant bullying by Scott and Rufus. He has two years of school left and longs to leave his home of Middleton behind by getting into Cambridge. He’s a smart boy who studies hard. He also likes to read and write poetry. Zeph sees the new boy at Fishbourne and is attracted, but the new boy laughing at how upset Zeph is by bullying makes him a little less… shiny. Until a little later when Jack stands up to Zeph’s bullies when he’s being harassed physically, yet again. Since his mother died, nobody else has done that for him – had his back. His father is totally dismissive of the bullying, wanting Zeph to harden up. His stepmother believes Zeph needs strict boundaries while her own biological daughters have none. Neither Zeph’s father or stepmother give a damn about him. They also don’t have any contact with Zeph’s Uncle Martin, whom Zeph loves, because he is trans. Zeph clearly has to hide that he’s gay because it would be hell on earth if he came out. His step sisters are either mean or annoying, Alice, one of said stepsisters, has some mental health issues which are unaddressed and enabled by her mother and stepfather, and they’re escalating. 

Alice invites Zeph’s bullies to his own sixteenth birthday party which he made clear he didn’t want in the first place. She also invites Jack because she is hyper-fixated on him. Zeph’s poor excuse of a father puts the party into the hands of the oldest step sister (18) so he and his wife can go away for the weekend – because that’s smart. 100% sarcasm intended. I’ll readily admit that Zeph’s family is beyond aggravation central but this was the first point of connection between the two boys. Jack is not at Fishbourne for a long time before Thomas whisks him off to another school in America. He’s not foolish. He’s noticed that Jack is getting too close to Zeph and that can’t happen, for obvious reasons. 

Jack leaned in and whispered, “I couldn’t concentrate on maths because all I could think about was kissing you.”  

When Jack doesn’t return to school one day and he can no longer contact him, Zeph is a heartbroken sixteen-year-old. However, before he can think too long about what’s happened, he ends up in a serious accident which I won’t elaborate on.  

The whole high school period isn’t lengthy but sets up critical attachment between the two MCs. I’m not into bullying teens and shitty families being present, and Zeph’s family is certainly toxic – it’s Cinderfella with one biological parent still on the scene.

Jack’s guardian, Thomas, is also problematic. While he gives Jack a home, and a singularly protective parental figure in his life, realistically he’s also training a boy to be an assassin. To be able to kill by sixteen. Sending him to high school to experience teenage life while simultaneously sending Jack off as an assassin is… extra. Thomas has often told Jack they kill bad people, they’re “adjustors,” so they’re doing good work, while also telling Jack to be aware of and nice to the people who need it. Jack was always going to fall for Zeph. The smart boy from a problematic family with a kind and gentle heart who in return attaches to Jack, the boy (who becomes a man) who will protect Zeph, care for him, one day maybe love him, but no matter what, is accepting that Jack will come and go because he has his reasons. Although Zeph believes it’s reasons that are completely different from the reality.   

I was also SO thankful that we jumped ahead three years in chapter seventeen to when Zeph is in his second year at Cambridge. He works on punts to earn a living while studying at Cambridge. On one occasion he believes he sees Jack on the Clare Bridge above him. Zeph’s in the middle of work and can’t go back until he finishes for the evening. He figures Jack won’t be there, maybe he was never there in the first place. Never stopped thinking about their brief but strong connection at Fishbourne. How Jack was his first. They do reconnect again at this time for a while, even taking a holiday, but it’s not as long-lived as Jack had intended.

They’re able to rekindle their relationship like Jack never left. It feels right that they have each other once again. This happens over and over. Jack pops in and out of Zeph’s life while Zeph spends time with his Uncle Martin and his partner, Paulo. Spends time going to the university he always wanted to attend. Gets a job he’s wanted as well. Jack gives as much trust to Zeph as he is able, he also gives him gestures of love, things Zeph can’t afford but Jack can and then he makes them even more special by being wholly present for Zeph. And Zeph, he gives Jack hope. He loves Jack unconditionally. They always make up for lost time when they’re together and they continue to form a deeper bond. They make love when they can, but where does their future really lie? How can a young man who is actively an assassin end up with an ordinary guy who works in a role counter to his? 

Told so well in a dual POV, Barbara Elsborg delivers a beautiful love story that transcends age, circumstances, family, and life in Everything That Kills Me. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in 2025. 

The Elsborg humour is still evident but it’s pared back somewhat more. I appreciated that. There is longing and loving and hurdles to overcome. I like people having to work for what they get. Zeph and Jack’s relationship is one of enduring, all encompassing love, something that I have a big old soft spot for in my reading – give me this any day over grumpy/sunshine. There is an inability of Jack to be able to be truthful for fear of harm coming to Zeph but Jack can’t pull away completely. He’s on that red string that permanently leads back to dear Zeph.

In any of my reading I need emotional depth to my characters. That’s gets a huge tick here. I need a story that engages me, another big tick. This book delivers on emotion for days and a belief in one another come what may. I loved both of the MCs. My heart ached for Zeph and I felt worried for Jack. I wondered how they would find their HEA but Barbara Elsborg has our backs. There is more to this story than my review contains. Lovely little bits and pieces here and there, like poetry that Zeph opens Jack’s eyes to.

Thomas had made it clear Jack had to keep control of his emotions, but didn’t reading poetry open your mind to emotion? Jack knew how Brooke felt because he’d had that longing too. Zeph was his home and he couldn’t give him up. 

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

~Rupert Brooke

There are a few darker moments, Jack’s an assassin after all and it wasn’t sugarcoated. There is a dab of social commentary about how some families still fail their LGBTQ+ children and relatives in 2025. Highly recommended reading, Everything That Kills Me gets 5 ‘Loving It’ Stars! Enjoy!