September 2023 – The sequel to the gripping adventure The Book of Stolen Dreams!
Find out more about The Book of Stolen Dreams in the post below.
The Secret of the Blood-Red Key is one of my most highly-anticipated sequels this year! After being glued to The Book of Stolen Dreams two years ago, I jumped at the chance to spend more time with Rachel and Robert Klein.
We left this brother and sister pair as heroes. They had defeated an evil dictator, saved their city and destroyed the Book of Stolen Dreams bringing order to the relationship between this world and the Hinterland afterlife. Brava, the capital city of Krasnia, is bright once more and life is finally getting back to how it should be.
When Rachel meets a strange boy with a blood red key similar to the one she has hidden in her bedroom, she realises life may not be as settled as she’d hoped. It seems she’s not the only Keeper of the Key and she’s not alone.
What follows is an incredibly cinematic adventure. A young girl has been smuggled into the mysterious Hinterland and there’s no way to get her back. If Rachel tells others about her key, will she actually be able to go to the Hinterland – and if she survives, will she be able to get back? Once there, she knows she’ll be tempted to find her mother but the thought of leaving her again is too much to bear.
The world building in this book is outstanding. The Hinterland is an imaginative version of the afterlife with complex systems and laws. People are judged by their moral paperwork and allocated a place. There they wait until they are ready to join The Flow – and release their souls from their human bodies forever. Children are taken to the Meadow which is bathed in light and full of colour while villains are sent to the Tyrants’ Tower. There is so much scope for discussion about how we are judged, links to religion and what different people believe happens after we die. Questions of morality, right and wrong, and how we choose to act when faced with crisis will challenge upper key stage two and key stage three classes.
As this fantastic plot plays out, there are so many delicious moments of realisation. I read wide-eyed as it became clear just what the villains were proposing and what would happen to Rachel in the process. Exciting and so thought-provoking, I know young readers will not be able to tear themselves away.
Thank you to Usborne and Fritha Lindqvist for an early read of this incredible book!
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Books by Kate Heap:
Scope for Imagination 