Rory Power Books

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Rory Power is an American author that writes fiction for young readers. She attended the University of East Anglia from where she acquired her Masters in Prose Fiction. She also acquired a degree from Middlebury College. When she isn’t writing fiction, the author can be found working as a crime fiction editor and story consultant for book TV adaptations.

Her speculative YA books are peppered with strong but complicated heroines that are not always as tidy and alluring as society would like them to be. Rory is known primarily for ‘Wilder Girls’, a novel that follows a trio of girls that must survive an apocalyptic event.

The author was inspired to write ‘Wilder Girls’ after she visited Harkers Island in North Carolina. The 2015 trip blew her mind. Even after she went back home, Rory couldn’t get the arresting landscape out of her mind. She became determined to write a story that would utilize a similar setting.

For Rory, the setting is the most exciting part of any story. As such, it wasn’t that shocking that her discovery of Harkers Island drove her to write her debut novel. Though, her initial attempt at bringing ‘Wilder Girls’ to life was hardly successful.

She spent four years trying to produce fiction. Her first draft of ‘Wilder Girls’ was a far cry from the novel she eventually published. First of all, it was written from a different perspective. Secondly, once she finished it, Rory Power couldn’t help but conclude that the story was never going to appeal to any other reader besides her.

She had written a novel that only she could appreciate and she understood that it had no real shot of succeeding in publishing. Her time in grad school eventually drew her focus towards other projects. But she never gave up on ‘Wilder Girls’.

When she finally returned to her first draft, she discarded everything. She used what she had left, which included the primary concept and the first scene, for her queries. Over time, with the help of her agent, she made revisions. By the time she found a place at Delacorte, Rory had a clearer idea of what she wanted to write.

She imputes a lot of the success she eventually found with the novel to Jeff VanderMeer‘s ‘Annihilation’. In 2015, even after recognizing that her first draft was too messy to work as a proper novel, Rory did not know how to proceed.

When she read ‘Annihilation’, it changed everything she thought she understood about storytelling. She realized that she could tell a story with a massive scope whilst also focusing her efforts on the events playing out on a single island.

Since then, Rory has become a more adept storyteller. She likes to outline her novels. But she does not permit her outlines to imprison her. She will happily ignore her original objectives if the story gives her the opportunity to take a more interesting turn.

While she hates drafting, she enjoys doing revisions. She is willing to let her characters take shape as she goes along but Rory won’t start writing until she has figured out the setting and the atmosphere.

Rory finds inspiration for her stories in books, tv shows, newspapers, everywhere she looks. She listens to music while she writes because certain playlists enable her to gain a clearer understanding of the atmosphere she wants to create in her scenes.

Best Rory Power Books

Rory has been commended for the feminist and LGBT elements of her stories, with some of the best books in her bibliography including:

Wilder Girls: Hetty’s life changed 18 months ago when the Tox hit and, in response, the Raxter School was put under quarantine. The measures did little to contain it. The infection started by killing the teachers before turning on the students and transforming their bodies.

Hetty was willing to remain within the school’s fence, to steer clear of the woods beyond which had become wild and dangerous. But then Byatt went missing and Hetty broke quarantine to find and save her.

Burn Our Bodies Down: Margot was not content. She did not know who she was or where she came from. Her mother wouldn’t answer her questions, not those concerned with her family, her origins. So Margot took matters into her own hands.

She found a photograph and used it to find a town that she hoped would fill in the missing pieces. But once she got to Phalene, Margot realized that her mother had left for a reason.

When Does The Next Rory Power book come out?

The next book by Rory Power is Kill Creatures and will be released on June, 3rd 2025.

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