Cherie Dimaline publishing sequel to The Marrow Thieves in fall 2021
Hunting by Stars will be released on Oct. 19, 2021
Cherie Dimaline is publishing Hunting by Stars, a follow-up to her bestselling and award-winning YA novel The Marrow Thieves, in October 2021.
The Georgian Bay Métis writer made the announcement on her Instagram page, with the caption: "The next step in the resistance."
Hunting by Stars will take place in the world of The Marrow Thieves, a post-apocalyptic North America where only Indigenous people have the ability to dream. Residential schools are re-established to capture and hold Indigenous people, and search for the secrets to dreaming in their bones.
Hunting by Stars picks up on 17-year-old French, who wakes up in a pitch-black room. In The Marrow Thieves, French lost his family to the residential schools and found a new family to travel with, while dodging the "Recruiters."
Hunting by Stars will be one of the most anticipated books of the fall.
The Marrow Thieves won the Kirkus Prize in the U.S., the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text, the CODE Burt Award for Indigenous young adult literature and the young adult category of the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
The YA novel was the #1 bestselling Canadian book in the country's independent bookstores in 2018. It was also defended by singer Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018.
It has sold more than 100,000 copies in Canada and is currently being adapted into a TV series.
"I wanted Indigenous readers to feel strong and powerful. I wanted them to see a narrative that actually is reminiscent of my own understanding of being an Indigenous person: That no matter what happens, you always belong to our land, we're always going to belong to each other and we'll seek each other out," Dimaline told CBC Books in 2018, when The Marrow Thieves was published.
"I wanted to break down some of the isolation that Indigenous youth might feel. To feel like they belong. To know that they belong to a larger community and they're loved."
Dimaline's other books include Empire of Wild, Red Rooms, A Gentle Habit and The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy.
