2021 The Christy Award Finalists: Kara Swanson & Dust

Hello again! Continuing until tomorrow (culminating with a list of winners), I have the privilege of featuring all of the 2021 The Christy Award Finalists! Today I’m featuring Kara Swanson and her young adult fiction Christy Award finalist book Dust! You can check out a list of all the finalists HERE.

DUST
SERIES: Heirs of Neverland #1
GENRE: Inspirational Young Adult Fantasy
PUBLISHER: Enclave Escape
RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2020
PAGES: 299

The truth about Neverland is far more dangerous than a fairy tale.

Claire Kenton believes the world is too dark for magic to be real—since her twin brother was stolen away as a child. Now Claire’s desperate search points to London… and a boy who shouldn’t exist.

Peter Pan is having a beastly time getting back to Neverland. Grounded in London and hunted by his own Lost Boys, Peter searches for the last hope of restoring his crumbling island: a lass with magic in her veins.

The girl who fears her own destiny is on a collision course with the boy who never wanted to grow up. The truth behind this fairy tale is about to unravel everything Claire thought she knew about Peter Pan—and herself.

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I asked the author…

What do you most want readers to take away from dust?

I crafted Dust hoping to use a familiar and beloved childhood fairytale to not only whisk readers away on a new adventure to Neverland — but also to remind myself that there is always a spark of light, even in the darkest moments. Dust became a process of speaking truth to myself, finding happy thoughts to cling to and push past all the other voices. And as I turned my eyes to the stars, knowing that the one who created them also had a purpose for me, I was able to weave some of that hope into Claire and Peter’s journey in Dust… and perhaps some of that hope lifted my readers’ hearts too.

Kara Swanson writes books about imaginary friends (The Girl Who Could See) and lost boys and raw-hearted girls fighting for their passions and traipsing on barefoot adventures (Dust and Shadow). Kara grew up in the jungles of Papua New Guinea as the daughter of missionaries, so she was a bit of a lost girl herself.

Kara is the Co-Founder and Fiction Program Director for the Author Conservatory where she gets to teach young writers how to tell powerful stories and craft sustainable careers.

Kara drinks too much coffee and loves soul-chats and belting Broadway songs as she drives – so come chat with her on Instagram!

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Make sure to like & comment on this post and enter my monthly giveaway for THREE books of your choice from my duplicates stash! After you’ve liked & commented, claim your entries HERE.

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What about you? What makes you want to read the young adult fiction Christy Award finalist Dust by Kara Swanson? Or, if you’ve read it already, what did you love about it?