A teen who is chosen to carry on her town’s legacy questions whether love is ever worth the risk in Rachel Griffin’s forthcoming YA fantasy The Sun and the Starmaker. The residents of Reverie all rely on the Sun-blessed immortal Starmaker, who pulls in the power of the sun to light the town each day. When Aurora is selected to become the new Starmaker, she abandons her small-town life to join the current Starmaker and learn what the role will truly entail. Soon, however, mentor and mentee are falling for one another, and Aurora begins to suspect that the Starmaker might not be as infallible as she once thought. Griffin, the author of YA books such as The Nature of Witches and Bring Me Your Midnight, spoke with PW about why teens discovering their powers remain a mainstay of her work, accepting grief as a part of love, and completing her novel amid recovering from a brain injury.
This novel falls in step with your previous works, all centering young women who possess magical powers. Why is this a through line you continue to enjoy exploring?
When I was working on this book, I had this realization that I go back to similar things a lot. And I think a main character coming into their magic is such an interesting framework. It makes them confront their beliefs or disbelief about themselves; it forces them out of their comfort zone. A lot of times, magic is directly tied to your emotions or what is going on internally. And in the case of Aurora, she has this very strong belief that deep love is not worth the risk. She has this magic now that is the result of an epic love between the Sun and the original Starmaker. And so it forces her, again, to confront this belief that she has. And, ultimately, I just love what that does for character arcs.
How do Aurora and the Starmaker face the pressures and responsibilities of their position differently?
It’s a very lonely role, and you can see how the Starmaker has chosen to isolate himself and not get emotionally attached to other people because he knows he’s going to outlive them. But I also wanted to show someone who really isn’t able to make that choice. She wears her heart on her sleeve and she wouldn’t know how to turn that part of herself off, even if she wanted to. And so you have these two people who are in the same role, dealing with it in different ways. And of course, the Starmaker sees how Aurora is choosing to enter this life, and it makes him question how he’s dealt with it. Did he have to choose a life of isolation? Was that really the cost of this magic? And Aurora is dealing with the fact that she loves very deeply, and she’s also going to lose those people. How can she be comfortable with what lies ahead of her?
Both Aurora and the reader know that once she steps into her place as the Starmaker, life for the previous Starmaker will change. How does that knowledge impact the bond they are forming?
Aurora starts out believing that the Starmaker is going to start aging when she comes into her power. That his “immortality” is going to fall away and he will once again be mortal and start to live out the rest of his life. And as the book continues, she realizes that they’re not going to get as much time as she previously thought. The ticking clock of it all, I find very compelling and heartbreaking. My deepest fear is losing the people that I love, and I feel that this project was me exploring that fear: knowing that you are putting yourself in a vulnerable position by loving deeply, because you have so much room to get hurt. I think the book is asking, is love actually worth that? And because I have such a very deep fear of grief, I do believe that it’s true that love is worth the risk.
In your author’s note you discuss how this book came at a pivotal moment for you— after getting a concussion that forced you to take a pause from writing. Why was it important for you to share that part of your writing journey? How does it feel to see the book that helped you through it getting into readers’ hands?
I was halfway through drafting The Sun and the Starmaker when I fell and suffered a traumatic brain injury, and so for me, the two are so inextricably linked. I credit this book a lot with helping me to heal, because it gave me a reason to continue working. I completely lost my ability to write after I fell. I missed this story and I loved it so much that I wanted to get back to it. And so I forced myself every day to try and write, and some days I could only make it 40 words before I would become so ill that I could not continue. And it was like that for a long time, but I kept coming back to it because I loved it. And if I had not loved this book the way that I do, I wouldn’t have finished it. Even though it felt near impossible and I kind of didn’t think I’d ever finish it, it gave me back my hope because my concussion was lasting for so much longer than I even knew it could. And ultimately finishing the book, I felt like I summitted Everest. I still feel like I’m in a little bit of shock and disbelief that it’s actually coming out, and it honestly feels like the best kind of victory lap and my own sort of fairy tale. The book almost didn’t exist, but it does, and I’ve never been more proud of anything as I am of this.
The Sun and the Starmaker by Rachel Griffin. Sourcebooks Fire, $19.99 Feb. 17 ISBN 978-1-7282-5618-4.
