Hi OOM readers! Today we are happy to welcome Scholastic author David Massey to OOM. David’s experience as an emergency supplies consultant helped inspire his debut novel Torn, which was released in summer 2013. Booklist raved about Torn in a starred review calling it “deeply affecting.” The Paralympic Games and Invictus Games in London sparked the idea for his newest novel Taken (Publication 8/26/14; Ages 14 and up). This book is about six extreme athletes taken hostage by pirates off the coast of Africa. 
Today David will discuss his inspiration and hope for Taken. Take it away David!
When researching for Taken I decided to visit Headley Court, where injured UK veterans go for rehab. I met Wing Commander Nick Carter, a chief consultant who had no idea that I was planning to write a novel about disabled veterans setting off on a round-the-world yacht trip. Imagine my surprise when, in the course of my tour, the Commander mentioned that he had just returned from a yacht trip to the Arctic with a group of severely injured veterans. When I shared my idea he was keen to tell me all about the challenges they had faced – including getting a double amputee onto an iceberg.
Meeting with Nick Carter and seeing Headley Court confirmed that Taken would have a resonance, that I could write a real-world novel and still incorporate a supernatural element—Taken was born. I wanted Taken to focus on this thing we call “disability” from both sides of the fence.
On one side we have the disabled protagonists who show themselves to be superhuman in many ways—whether it is with the character Charis and her state-of-the-art prosthetic arm, Ash with his carbon-fiber blades, or Marcus retaining his sense of humor and zest for life in spite of his disfiguring injuries. On the other hand, my protagonist—Rio is the most able of the able-bodied, an Olympic standard sailor who finds herself confronted with disability in a way that she never has before. Initially the disabilities loom larger to Rio than perhaps they should, but over the course of the story Rio has to learn to see through different eyes. She learns to rely on Ash and the others. She learns that a person is more than the sum of their parts.
I hope that Taken celebrates the indomitable human spirit just as vigorously. Taken is about never giving up, it is about finding good in the most terrible situations, and it is about forging a future however dark the past.
Photo Credit: Debi Massey
