quippe | Entries tagged with joanne harris

The Blurb On The Back:

Six hundred miles apart, two girls each bear on their skin a runemark: a symbol of the old days when the known Worlds were rules by the gods from their sky citadel, Asgard.

But Asgard now lies in ruins, and the power of the gods has long since been destroyed.

Or so everyone thinks …

Filled with inventive and humorous detail, trickery and treachery, carnage and lunacy, Runelight is the second title in a series of gloriously imaginative and dramatic tales about the Norse gods.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Joanne Harris’s sequel to RUNEMARKS is another entertaining YA fantasy that reinvents Norse mythology and brings it to a new generation. It’s storytelling on an epic scale, which does mean that at times I lost track of which character was which and I also found it overwritten at some points. But this doesn’t detract from it being an enjoyable and entertaining read and I can’t wait to read the next one.

RUNELIGHT was released in the UK on 3rd November 2011. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Maddy touched the final rune.
She spoke the cantrip.
The Hill opened ...

Maddy Smith has always been an outsider. Born with a rusty-coloured rune on her hand – what the villagers call a ruinmark – she is scarred by this symbol of the old gods, a sign of magic.

And everyone knows that magic is dangerous. Except for Maddy who actually thinks it’s rather fun. Until now. For suddenly her friend One-Eye, a rascally Outlander, wants her to open Red Horse Hill and descend into World Below – a world filled with goblins and far worse – to retrieve a relic of the old gods ...

Full of trickery, magic and the enchantment of the Norse myths, Runemarks is an epic fantasy adventure – richly inventive and superbly imaginative.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

I bought this thinking it was another cynical attempt by a successful adult author to cash in on the YA market with a substandard story. How wrong I was. I loved this book. It’s a brilliant fantasy read, peppered with Norse mythology, a solid quest story and a central character who’s resourceful, clever and desperate to find out who she really is. My only criticism is that there isn’t a sequel so that I can read more about this fabulous world and the people within it.