Early Review - Rebel Heart by Moira Young

If you've read Blood Red Road, you know that Moira Young has a different way of telling her stories. It's as though we've taken a step back in time to the 1800’s southwest and found ourselves in a world that has gone to hell and the survivors live the squalid life. After reading the first book, the dialect actually becomes easier to understand and not so painful to take especially from Saba’s POV.

Saba, known as the Angel of Death for her actions in saving her brother, has a price on her head from DeMalo and the Tonton. Along with Lugh, Emmi and Tommo, they are supposedly heading towards the West Coast where they hope to find a new way of life away from all the dangers that have dragged on their lives and caused so much pain and suffering for all parties involved since we first were introduced to them.

Saba is emotionally damaged and drained to the point where needs some semblance of a break or someone to help her with her own personal nightmares. After surviving and killing off so many girls in order to survive, it’s no wonder she hasn’t broken down and become a shadow of her former self. Yet, Saba also can’t rest knowing that Jack has decided to travel back East in an attempt to meet up with Ike’s Molly.

Her brother, Lugh, is by far the most aggravating character you will meet in this series. He’s abrupt; he continually belittles and puts Saba down even though she risked her own life to save his. Readers may understand why he feels the way he does, but, I really wanted to throttle him to an inch of his life or have the TonTon take him out back and beat him to a pulp and leave him to rot for the rampaging wolves.

Young, unfortunately, decides that she can’t allow Saba to have any sort of solo relationship with Jack, and adds two other players to the mix. This comes after Saba believes that she’s been betrayed in the worse possible way. Jack is basically a tertiary character in that we know he exists, but he’s so far off screen that he really doesn’t have a role in the story until Saba learns a thing or two about what he’s been doing since they split.

Rebel Heart is a decent enough second installment to the Dust Lands series. The ending leaves lots of questions for readers to contemplate until the next book in the series releases January 2014. Naturally, there are more rough waters ahead for Saba and crew before they are allowed to sail into the sunset and retire forever. 

Expected publication: October 30th 2012 by Margaret K. McElderry 

Title - Rebel Heart
Author - Moira Young
Releases - October 30, 2012
ISBN13 - 9781442430006