Excerpt from ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Reveals Haymitch’s Love Interest Lenore

Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel, out March 18, is set 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, and tells the origin story of Katniss’ gruff mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. The story picks up on the day of Haymitch’s own reaping — which also happens to be his 16th birthday — and, well, fans of the Hunger Games know how that goes for him.

As the original trilogy revealed, Haymitch is selected as one of the District 12’s tributes for the 50th Hunger Games. But after he wins with a clever stunt, President Snow orders the death of Haymitch’s mother, brother, and girlfriend as retribution for his perceived defiance. These deaths shaped Haymitch into the jaded man we first met in The Hunger Games, but a new excerpt of Sunrise on the Reaping’s first chapter reveals that the seeds of his cynicism — and, more importantly, the hope that things could one day change — were planted long ago.

In the audio excerpt, read by Collins in the video above, readers are introduced to Haymitch’s doomed girlfriend, Lenore Dove, on the morning of the reaping. When the pair talk about the impending selection, in which double the number of tributes will be picked, it’s easy to recognize Haymitch’s resigned tone when he tells Lenore that he tells himself things will be all right “because the reaping’s going to happen no matter what I believe.”

Lenore refuses to accept this line of thinking, explaining that this type of passive compliance is “part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.” She urges Haymitch to imagine the world without a reaping, though he’s reluctant to give this idea any credence.

This brief exchange feels like a small, but formative moment in Haymitch’s life, and it’s easy to understand how with Lenore’s death, the dreams of the better future she hoped to inspire in him died, too. But it’s also likely the memory of this moment that helped rekindle that flame of hope 24 years later, when he worked with Katniss to overthrow the Capitol and end the Games once and for all.

The more we learn about Sunrise on the Reaping, the more clear it becomes that the book is going to hurt in the best way. The love between Haymitch and Lenore is so clear in this excerpt, which makes the knowledge of her eventual death even more painful than it already was. Though perhaps the most heart-wrenching detail of this whole thing is the reveal that Haymitch’s decision to raise geese is done in remembrance of Lenore.

We can’t wait to find out what other devastating details Sunrise on the Reaping has in store when it hits shelves on March 18.