RAGING STAR
The eagerly-awaited finale to the Costa award-winning Dustlands trilogy
by MOIRA YOUNG
In the final instalment of this electrifying trilogy, Saba is plagued by unanswered questions. Her encounter with DeMalo leaves her drawn to the man she knows should be her enemy but she has no choice but to continue to lead the fight against him. Saba knows the price of violence - she has already lost so much in the quest for freedom - now she must decide if it’s worth the fight.
THE STORY SO FAR...
In Blood Red Road, the first novel in this epic post-apocalyptic trilogy, Saba’s twin brother is stolen by mysterious, black-robed riders. She sets out on a desperate journey to find him but this is a lawless land, where life is cheap and survival is hard. Ahead lie violence and treachery, and Saba needs a spirit as tough as her crossbow to survive. Her companions are the cleverest bird that ever flew, and a handsome thief with eyes the colour of moonlight.
In the sequel, Rebel Heart, there is a price on Saba’s head. Her victory to save her brother has come at a cost and a new enemy pursues her across the dustlands. Saba is separated from her companion, Jack, at a time when she needs him more than ever. She needs his moonlight eyes, his reckless courage, and his wild heart. But can Saba really trust Jack?
Blood Red Road – the debut novel by Moira Young - won the 2011 Costa Children’s Book Award.
The Costa judges called it: ‘An astonishing debut novel which had us all hooked from the beginning to the unpredictable end.’
Film rights for Blood Red Road have been optioned by acclaimed director Ridley Scott.
BOOK LAUNCH
We were lucky enough to have been sent picture from Moira Young's book launch for the final book in the Dustlands series, Rising Star. It was a private event held at the Waterstones in Bath, and looks like a was a brilliant turn out!
Click to read more:
Here's what Moira said in her interview with the Bath Chronicle:
It took several careers and two broken wrists for Moira Young to discover her destiny as an author.
But now the Canadian-born writer, who has made Bath her adopted home, has just launched the final installment in her award-winning Dust Lands trilogy, with acclaimed director Ridley Scott currently working on a film adaptation.
“From the ages of about eight until twelve I wanted to be an author,” said Moira. “But then I was bitten by the performing bug and forgot all about it.”
So she took to the stage, first as a dancer and actress, then an opera singer, but found that she still had not found the fulfilment she craved.
“The acting and the singing petered out and I still felt like I hadn’t found what I was meant to be doing and where my voice was,” she said.
“I thought it was in other people’s words, and in other people’s music but it wasn’t.
“I took a script writing course and I was on my way to the final assessment when I fell off a bus and broke both my wrists.
“I think it was a sign that that wasn’t what I was meant to be doing.
“I had to lay on the sofa all summer and that’s when, when I was least able to write, that I thought that writing was what I really wanted to do.”
So she enrolled in a children’s writing course at City Lit, formed a writers’ group with her fellow students, and three years later, inspired by the issue of climate change, began working on the book that was to change her life.
“There was a lot of coverage in the newspapers about the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit and I started to read more widely around the subject of climate change. The lack of political action and public knowledge was making me really very anxious and I started wondering what would happen if the temperature rose by two, three or four degrees.
“I needed to channel that anxiety into something, so I channelled it into writing my first book.”
But Moira is keen to stress that the Dust Lands trilogy is not a warning.
“I’m not a polemicist or an expert so it’s not an issues book or a warning of any kind,” she said.
“It grew out of something that I feel strongly about but the story stands on its own and you could read it without being aware of any of that.
“It’s a story set in the future and every reader, dependant on their age and experience and understanding, will bring something different to it and that’s the great thing about books.”
A lover of books from an early age, it was perhaps inevitable that Moira would choose to write books for children.
“I was an early reader,” she said. “My Dad and I would go to the library every Saturday morning and take out the maximum number of books - which was nine.
“I would rush home and inhale them. I was very anti-social, I used to have to be dragged out the house and made to play with the other kids.
“It never occurred tome to write a novel or historical fiction or anything like that.
“I always wanted to write for children. The books that I read when I was young really stayed with me for my entire life.
“I still read them and I still love them. The power of books when you are young gives you an understanding of the world and takes you beyond your horizons to see how other people might live, and allows you to put on someone else’s skin. It’s a very powerful thing when you are young. I owe everything to the library.”
The Dust Lands trilogy is set in a dystopian landscape with the heroine, Saba, on a quest to find her kidnapped brother.
But while many authors might put their own personality traits into the characters, Moira says she is very different to Saba.
“She’s the polar opposite to me in many ways,” said Moira. “Saba’s grumpy and brusque to the point of rudeness and she pays no attention to what people think of her. She’s also a warrior and physically courageous and I’m not any of those things. She’s my fantasy life.”
The characters in the book have been part of Moira’s life since she started writing the trilogy eight years ago, but now the story is complete it’s time for her to say goodbye.
“I have lived with these characters for a long time,” she said. “They have been such a big part of my life.
“I have to have a break now to let me leave them and let them leave me.
“It feels like the break up of a long relationship, but we are parting on good terms.
“I will always think very fondly of them, and I think I might miss them, but I don’t want to miss them to the extent that I will revisit them.”
And while the story of Saba may be over, Moira has no plans to stop writing.
“I have a little itch of an idea,” she said. “But I have no idea where it will go. I am going to have a couple of months off and go to Vancouver for a while because I just need to leave this all behind.
“I hope I have got another story and some new characters brewing and I’m looking forward to finding out what and who they are.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Moira Young was born in 1959 in New Westminster, British Columbia, and is of Scots and Cornish descent. After graduating from the University of British Columbia she moved to the UK to attend The Drama Studio. Moira became a tap-dancing chorus girl in London’s West End, appearing in High Society, directed by Richard Eyre, before returning to Canada and retraining as an opera singer. In 1991, Moira won the Metropolitan Opera Regional Auditions in Western Canada and she has sung in opera throughout the UK and Europe.
Moira wrote her first book aged nine but after being bitten by the theatre bug, she didn’t take up writing again until 2003, when she enrolled in Elizabeth Hawkins’ Writing for Children course at the City Lit. In 2006, Moira moved to Bath, where she still lives with her husband. She is now a full-time writer.
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