Satisfy your 'Hunger' with the last in a trilogy

This young adult book is shrouded in mystery, the author is giving few advance interviews, and fans have been waiting a year for its appearance. Sound like an installment of "Harry Potter"? "Twilight"? It's actually the final book in the bestselling "Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

"Mockingjay" launches on Tuesday, with 1.2 million copies hitting bookstores, and Collins will be on Long Island to kick things off as part of a planned 12-market book tour that lasts through November. The first book of the trilogy, titled "The Hunger Games," is being developed into a film by Lionsgate, and speculation has begun about who will play the heroine.

The science-fiction trilogy, geared to ages 12 and older, takes place in the future, in a country called Panem, which exists in what used to be North America. It's a dystopian world - the opposite of utopian - a place run by dictatorship and filled with misery and oppression. The Capitol runs the country, and each year its 12 subservient districts are forced to offer one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 16 to participate in the Hunger Games. The gladiator-style battle is televised nationally and kids are forced to kill other kids to survive, with the winner bringing a year of plenty to their district.

"The Hunger Games," launched in September 2008, introduced 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to be a contestant from District 12 to spare her younger sister, chosen in the official lottery. In "Catching Fire," released in September 2009, Katniss and Peeta Mellark, the boy contestant from her district, become the faces of rebellion against the Capitol. In "Mockingjay" - so named because the bird is a symbol of the resistance - well, we don't know what will happen.

"One of the most important things to me is that everyone in the world is going to be able to experience the final book of 'The Hunger Games' all at the same time, and be able to discover what happens in the book without hearing about it elsewhere first," Collins wrote recently on a Scholastic blog. "Word will certainly travel fast, but I urge you - before or immediately after Aug. 24 - to please respect the other 'Hunger Games' fans worldwide and avoid sharing any spoilers, so that the conclusion of Katniss' story can unfold for each reader the way it was meant to unfold." (Scholastic publishes the "Hunger Games" books and also the "Harry Potter" series.)

Big-name young-adult authors have weighed in with admiration for the books - including Rick Riordan, creator of the "Percy Jackson" series, and Stephenie Meyer of "Twilight" renown. Collins, a Connecticut resident, was named among the 2010 TIME 100 Most Influential People.

WHO Suzanne Collins, author

WHAT Launch of “Mockingjay,” the final book of “The Hunger Games” trilogy. Collins won’t read or answer questions; she will stamp books with a special “Mockingjay” stamp instead of signing.

WHERE Barnes & Noble, 380 Walt Whitman Rd., Huntington Station, 631-421-9886, bn.com

WHEN 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Barnes & Noble will dole out color-coded wristbands for the event beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday. Book must be bought at Barnes & Noble to be stamped; some people may not get stamped if Collins’ appearance time runs out.

COST $17.99 for book