Rebel Heart Blog Tour: Rule of Three

Today, I am SO excited to be hosting a stop on the official blog tour for Rebel Heart by Moira Young. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this sequel to Blood Red Road for over a year — and if you’ll recall, I raved about this book last year. In fact, my guest blog for MTV’s Hollywood Crush is actually quoted on the cover of Rebel Heart — and you’ll see a blurb from Novel Novice on the back jacket, too!

It also doesn’t hurt that this book is just as stunning as the first.

Here’s what you need to know about the “Rule of Three” blog tour: Each Monday for three weeks, three sites will go live with unique content including guest posts from Moira, reviews/giveaways, and blogger-created fan features.

Today, we have a guest blog from Moira AND a chance for you to win an amazing Dust Lands prize pack. Keep reading for details!

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The Rule of Three
A guest blog from Moira Young

Saba’s Dust Lands world is wild and lawless. Those who don’t choose the relative safety of isolation congregate in rough, violent shanty towns. Here, power lies with madmen and warlords; whoever has the strength and determination to seize and hold it.

In such a brutal world, you might not expect a drifter and trickster to live by a code of honour. But that’s just what we get with Jack and his rule of three. Here, he explains it to Saba as they escape from a burning Hopetown in Blood Red Road.

Ever heard of the rule of three? he shouts as we run.

No!

If you save somebody’s life three times, their life belongs to you. You saved my life today, that makes once. Save it twice more an I’m all yers.

I’ll jest hafta make sure that don’t happen, I says

It’ll happen if it’s meant to happen, he says. It’s all written in the stars. It’s all fate.

I don’t believe in the stars, I says.

We’ll see about that, he says.

Saba has fought her way out of captivity with one goal in mind: to find and rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh. So she doesn’t give this smooth-talking chancer another thought. Until, that is, he follows her and offers his services as a guide. He knows the way to Freedom Fields, high in the Black Mountains, where Lugh is being held prisoner. Saba accepts and finds herself stuck with a cocky show-off and his irritating running tally of obligations. It isn’t long before he pointedly evens the score by plucking her from a rising river and the rule of three begins to mark their relationship.

There’s much about Jack that puzzles and disturbs Saba, but his rules are little more than annoying.  Then, he leads them to the One-Eyed Man, a lonely mountain tavern run by his friend, Ike Twelvetrees, and Jack asks Ike to accompany them to Freedom Fields.

I dunno, says Ike. Business is good. I don’t really wanna –

Rule of three, Ike, says Jack.

Ah, says Ike. Well, I cain’t deny that the rule of three applies here.

What? I says.

I saved Ike’s life three times, says Jack.

That means my life belongs to Jack an he can pretty much call the shots, says Ike. I ain’t ever heard of anybody goin that far. Usually it’s more like … callin in a favour.

But the rule of three’s a … a joke, I says.

A joke? says Ike, starin at me. Where’d you git that idea?

Far from a joke, Saba learns that the rule of three represents the high cost that Jack is willing to pay for friendship. She has already caught a glimpse of the scars on his chest: three long pink claw marks that slash across his body from right shoulder to left hip. A smaller set of claw marks scar his back. Ike tells Saba how Jack came by them as they prepare to battle the hellwurms that lurk beneath a dead mountain lake.

You crossed the lake that night with Jack, I says. Where’s yer scars?

Jack took the hit instead of me, says Ike. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t of got between me an the wurm.

Well, you was movin so slow I had to do somethin, says Jack.

You was away, says Ike. You was clear. You should of left me to fend fer myself, not turned back an nearly got yerself killed.

I’m still here, ain’t I? he says.

Jack makes light of his courage but, in every case, his rule of three has meant the difference between life and death; for Ike, for Saba and for Jack himself, trapped by the Hopetown fire until Saba came to the rescue.

Some time later, during the action of Rebel Heart, Saba tries to pin it down.

He pretends the rule of three’s a game. A joke. But it ain’t. Not to him anyways. It’s how he binds hisself to people he cares about. How he binds them to him.

In fact, it’s much more than that. The rule of three points to perhaps the most profound of all human attributes: self-sacrifice.

A heroic code of honour indeed.

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Rebel Heart is in stores on October 30th.

Visit the Dust Lands website and don’t forget to enter the Rebel Heart giveaway hosted by SimonTEEN for your chance to win the first two books in the DUST LANDS trilogy by Moira Young.  The giveaway ends on October 31st. Enter here.

Be sure to visit today’s other tour stops: Emily’s Reading Room and Icey Books.

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Meanwhile, be sure to enter our Dust Lands Contest. One winner will receive:

A Dust Lands prize pack including a custom t-shirt, custom water bottle and copies of Blood Red Road and Rebel Heart!

Just fill out the Novel Novice Dust Lands Contest Entry Form for your chance to win.

Rules:

• One entry per person
• U.S. only
• Must use the entry form
• Entries due by midnight (PT) on Monday, October 29th

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About Rebel Heart:

Nothing is certain and no one is safe in the second book in the highly praised Dust Lands trilogy, which MTV’s Hollywood Crush blog called “better than The Hunger Games.”

It seemed so simple: Defeat the Tonton, rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh, and then order would be restored to Saba’s world. Simplicity, however, has proved to be elusive. Now, Saba and her family travel west, headed for a better life and a longed-for reunion with Jack. But the fight for Lugh’s freedom has unleashed a new power in the dust lands, and a formidable new enemy is on the rise.

What is the truth about Jack? And how far will Saba go to get what she wants? In this much-anticipated follow-up to the riveting Blood Red Road, a fierce heroine finds herself at the crossroads of danger and destiny, betrayal and passion.

About Blood Red Road:

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That’s fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba’s world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she’s a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.