Hunger Games hive, rise up. Suzanne Collins’s blockbuster dystopian series is set to return with an all-new audiobook, , on March 18. The timing couldn’t be better for fans who have been feverishly speculating about how Sunrise might continue the story ever since the release of the last installment, the 2020 prequel , which was adapted into a hit film. With pub day just a little more than a month away, the suspense is almost unbearable! So, we’ve marshaled our inner jabberjays and gathered some crucial intel to bring you up to date on everything we know so far about Sunrise on the Reaping.
What is Sunrise on the Reaping about?
The fifth book in , Sunrise on the Reaping is another prequel to the main trilogy, bringing us back 24 years before Book 1 to the 50th annual Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell in which twice as many tributes will be taken than usual. Needless to say, the districts of Panem are beset with fear and anxiety about who will be chosen, though perhaps District 12 resident Haymitch Abernathy should be a little more concerned, given that we know he’s about to get picked! Indeed, despite a promising relationship with the girl he loves, close ties to his family, AND a birthday on reaping day, 16-year-old Haymitch soon finds himself called for the Games and shuttling toward the Capitol with three other tributes from District 12. One of them is Maysilee Donner, Madge Undersee’s aunt and the original owner of Katniss’s mockingjay pin; the other two are “a young friend who’s nearly a sister” to Haymitch and a boy described as “a compulsive oddsmaker.”
Fans have been clamoring for Haymitch’s backstory since he served as mentor to Katniss and Peeta in the 74th Hunger Games all the way back in Book 1, so the focus on his character from a first-person perspective is thrilling. While we know some details about Haymitch already—that he emerges victorious in the 50th Games, suffers great personal tragedy when President Snow kills his family, and becomes an alcoholic—there is so much more to learn about his journey and how it connects to past and future events in the series. Who is Haymitch’s girlfriend, Lenore Dove, and could she connect him to the Covey and Lucy Gray? What about Haymitch’s father, who died in a coal mine fire, leaving his mother to raise Haymitch and his younger brother Sid alone?
Eagle-eyed fans noted that an excerpt of Sunrise’s first chapter contains references to Haymitch foraging in the woods for plums. Could that connect him to Katniss’s father, who taught her how to hunt and gather, or to her mother, a healer and apothecary’s daughter who would surely be interested in natural ingredients? We also know that Haymitch’s mother is 35 at the outset of the story, making her about 19 when he was born—another clue for fans to latch onto before the book comes out and answers our burning questions.
