7 Big Lessons from Blood Red Road
Blood Red Road (Dustlands, Book 1)
- No one succeeds alone – we need the assistance of others.
- The world is more than about us. We are our brother’s keeper. What affects one of us affects all of us.
- We are much more than we think – smarter, braver, and stronger.
- Do not discount what children have to say. They have valuable contributions.
- Determination and persistence will get you very far.
- Do not be too proud to ask for help.
- Don’t resent others for events they have no control over.
What is Blood Red Road by Moira Young About?
Blood Red Road
by Moira Young is another dystopian novel for young adults, and is the first installment in the Dust Land series. A widower and his three children (and a crow called Nero) live in Silverlake, a wasteland where water sources are drying up and food is scare. Emmi is 9 years old, and twins Saba and Lugh are 18 years old. Their mother died during childbirth and the father has been a shell of a person since then.
One day four cloaked men on horseback capture Lugh and take him away and the father is killed trying to rescue his son. Saba and Lugh are very close and have never been separated even for a day. While the men are taking away Lugh, Saba vows that she will rescue him. Saba has never cared for her little sister and blames her for the death of their mother and sometimes she is downright mean to Emmi.
Saba is going after the people who captured her brother but doesn’t want to take Emmi who she thinks will slow her down. She decides to take her little sister to her mother’s friend, Mercy, who is a few days journey away on foot. Saba hasn’t seen Mercy since her mother died nine years ago. Mercy agrees to keep Emmi and relates a bizarre story to Saba about the night they were born. The night Saba and Lugh were born, there was a stranger called Trask “who kept on saying that a boy born at midwinter’s a rare thing.” Trask left before Saba was born – two hours after Lugh so he didn’t know about her.
She leaves Emmi behind with Mercy and goes on her quest to find her twin, but before she leaves, Mercy gives her a heartstone, which warms up when she finds her heart’s desire. But Emmi has ideas of her own and tracks down Saba on Mercy’s horse. Saba is not happy to see her little sister. On their way to Hopetown where they believe Lugh is being held by the Tonton, they encounter Rooster Pinch and Miz Pinch in their landboat, Desert Swan.
Rooster Pinch is spineless and his wife bullies him. They offer to give Emmi and Saba a ride to Hopetown. Emmi is wary of them and doesn’t trust them – she senses that they are up to no good. Saba accepts the ride, and the food offered, but when they finish eating, their eyes start to get droopy. When they wake up they are chained down and realize that they were drugged. Saba realizes that she should have listened to her little sister.
The Pinches arrive in Hopetown with the sisters, and Miz Pinch takes Saba to see the Cage Master. In Hopetown they have cage fights. People fight each other in a cage and each has the opportunity to lose twice, but after their third loss they are executed. The king of the land controls the people by drugging them with a plant called chaal. While with the Cage Master, Saba sees DeMalo, one of the four men who captured Lugh.
She fights other women and she always win because she has a goal in mind to find her twin brother Lugh. And her pet crow Nero is always close by. This crow is very intelligent and is a guide to Saba. While fighting, something comes over her – the red hot, which transforms her into the ultimate fighting machine. Saba always studies the women she is fighting to understand their weaknesses then use it to defeat them. Because of her reputation – The Angel of Death – the other women stay away from her.
She has nightmares and she talks in her sleep. A new girl who recently arrives at the cell block where the cage fighters stay befriends Saba. Every night after the other girls are sleeping she and Helen confide in each other, and through those conversations, she discovers that John Trask was Helen’s father. She also learns that the only place Lugh could be is Freedom Fields, Deep in the Black Mountains where the king is keeping him. Every six years, at midsummer’s eve, the king sacrifices a boy born at midwinter, who just turned 18 years old.
The king believes he must commit this act so that he may live. The king also controls the chaal and uses slaves to grow and harvest the plant. Helen is truthful because she knows that she is going to die anyway, she does, but not in the cage. While Saba is kept imprisoned, Emmi figures out a way to visit her in between doing chores for the Pinches. She is a big draw because she is unstoppable when fighting.
With the new information from Helen, Saba knows that she has to find a way to escape, and she does that with the assistance of Emmi and The Free Hawks, which are female warriors. Epona, who is one of the Free Hawks is imprisoned, and gets the opportunity to fight Saba who hasn’t lost a fight. After Epona loses twice to Saba, she comes up with a plan to throw her next three fights so that while she is on the route to execution she can escape.
One of the days that Saba loses a fight the king is in attendance, and it so happens that the king is the son of the Pinches. He is not respectful to them, and treats them shabbily. The king is not happy because he has been hearing so much about The Angel of Death who is unstoppable, and yet she loses when he decides to watch her fight. Miz Pinch tells him that Saba threw the fight because there is no way that she can lose. One day while she is in the exercise yard for the fighters, she meets Jack, a male fighter, and her heartstone heats up when she moves closer to him. Is he her heart’s desire?
The third time she loses the fight to Epona, the execution route is changed, which messes up their plan, and she has a split second to find an alternative solution. With the help of Nero she escapes. All along the goal of The Free Hawks is to free all the cage fighters and burn down Hopetown. All she cares about is to free her brother. In the end she does the right thing and when the fighters are released, she notices that Jack isn’t among them and risks her life to save him where he is locked up in the Cooler, the isolation chamber.
While they are leaving Hometown after they set the place on fire, they are chased by the Pinches in the landboat, which crashes. Rooster and Miz Pinch die in the crash, and it appears that the king has succumbed as well.
Jack knows where Freedom Fields is and offers to take Saba there. Once again, she decides to leave Emmi behind, this time with The Free Hawks. Jack says that Emmi has as much right to go along because Lugh is also her brother. Emmi proves that she can fight and demonstrates with her slingshot. The Free Hawks offer to assists Saba and she says” no.” She was not exposed to children her own age except for Lugh while growing up and she didn’t see many people for that matter so she is not socialized, doesn’t understand friendship and how to accept help. Before they leave on their journey, Maev, the leader of The Free Hawks gives Saba a ring, telling her that if she ever needs help, she should send Nero with the ring, and they will come to her assistance.
On their journey to Freedom Fields Emmi voices her concern that she feels like someone is following them. Saba brushes the concern aside, and it turns out that once again the child is correct. Epona and Ash from The Free Hawks are following them to assist in Lugh’s escape. Jack takes a detour to get the assistance of his friend Ike.
The journey is treacherous and they survive by helping each other. They arrive in the nick of time to save Lugh, and they discover much to their dismay that the king isn’t dead. They rescue Lugh, but Emmi is captured because she didn’t listen and follow the plan. Since her father’s death, and the ensuing months, Saba’s feelings have changed toward her little sister. Initially, if Emmi was captured and not Lugh, Saba would not have gone to rescue her little sister, but now she would die for her.
When Saba realizes what they are up against at Freedom Fields she sends Nero to Maev with the ring that Maev gave her. There was a delay in The Freedom Hawks arriving and things were tense for a while. With the aid of The Free Hawks and DeMalo who deserted the king, they are able to overcome the Tontons and kill the king for real this time around. They lose some Free Hawks in the process, including Epona. Jack’s friend Ike dies as well saving his adopted son, Tommo.
The Free Hawks return home. The story ends when Jack rides off in one direction to give word to Molly, a woman who has been waiting for Ike to return to her, and Lugh, Saba, Emmi and Tommo head to the west to find their new home in Big Water. Jack promises to return and find them there.
Final Thoughts: Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Blood Red Road is a page turner, and Moira Young sets up the story nicely. You know there is another book because there are unanswered questions – Why did DeMalo help them when he refused to fight with the king? Does he intend to take over from the king? Who is Jack really and what are his intentions?
I recommend Blood Red Road by Moira Young, but I have to alert you that it is written in a type of broken English so it takes a bit getting used to at first. Saba is a great leader in the making. Rebel Heart (Dust lands)
, the second installment of the Dust Land series is out the end of October.
Have you read?
Rebel Heart by Moira Young a Book Review and Summary
Let the Reading Challenge Begin – Book Recommendations for Summer 2014
Blood Red Road (Dustlands, Book 1)
The Dust Lands Trilogy: Blood Red Road; Rebel Heart; Raging StarRebel Heart (Dustlands) by Moira Young (2012-08-02)Raging Star: Dustlands Trilogy, Book 3
