REBECCA YARROS is the bestselling author of 15 novels, including The Things We Leave Unfinished and The Last Letter. Her latest novel, Fourth Wing is a high-stakes, enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance. Good Reading for Young Adults caught up with Rebecca to discuss everything from books, reading habits to dragons.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Welcome to the brutal and elite world of Basgiath War College, where everyone has an agenda, and every night could be your last . . .
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general – also known as her tough-as-talons mother – has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away … because dragons don’t bond to ‘fragile’ humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter – like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies … or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
WHAT’S ON REBECCA’S BOOKCASE?
What are you reading now?
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have five books – what would they be?
East of Eden by Steinbeck, Lover Awakened by JR Ward, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Rule by Jay Crownover, An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir.
Also, this question is wicked unfair. I want my entire library!
Where is your favourite place to read?
In bed! I always read before falling asleep.
Do you read one book at a time or multiple?
Multiple, usually in different formats.
Do you use a bookmark or fold the corners of pages?
Bookmark!
What can you tell us about the world of your latest fantasy novel Fourth Wing?
Fourth Wing is set at a brutal war college in a pre-industrial kingdom known as Navarre. There are four quadrants (majors) for the college, and though Violet has prepared her entire life to enter the Scribe Quadrant like her father, her commanding general mother, forces her into the Riders Quadrant, where cadets will either bond to a dragon or die.
Did you draw on any myths or legends to help capture the dragons in your story?
In form, the dragons definitely stem from western folklore, with their four legs and ability to breathe fire, but there wasn’t any one myth or legend that really defined them.
What do you hope readers will take away from this novel?
I really hope that readers with chronic illness can see themselves in Violet, and that every reader can step back and give a second thought to who has the power to tell history in our own world.
What do you like to drink or eat while reading?
I usually read before bed, so no snacks then, but I’m always a fan of cheese!
If you could meet one author (living or dead) – who would it be and why?
Jane Austen, because I would LOVE to know the actual plot and ending for the book. I actually became so cranky about the first season of the film series adaptation that I wrote an entire book (The Things We Leave Unfinished) about which books authors leave unfinished and why.
Explore more from Rebecca Yarros HERE.