12+: Runelight - Joanne Harris

Release Date: 03/11/11

BOOK BLURB:

The squabbling Norse gods and goddesses of Runemarks are back! And there's a feisty new heroine on the scene: Maggie, a girl the same age as Maddy but brought up a world apart - literally, in World's End, the focus of the Order in which Maddy was raised. Now the Order is destroyed, Chaos is filling the vacuum left behind...and is breaching the everyday world. A chilling prophecy from the Oracle. A conflict between two girls. And with just twelve days to stave off the Apocalypse, carnage is about to be unleashed ...


REVIEW:

OK, I read the original Runemarks a few years ago, yet even so, it’s a title I remember fairly well as I loved the complexities as well as plot intrigue that Joanne had woven within almost as if she were a Norn herself. Yet this book almost dwarves that with its huge plot, more twists than the roots of Yggdrasil and just as complex with the developments as well as emotional turmoil for the characters within.

It’s a beautiful piece of writing and whilst it took a little time to get back into the spirit of, it was well worth the time and effort and lets face it a book aimed at this market at 600 pages has to have something special woven within to keep the target audience happy. Add to this the introduction of a new character who’s just as tough as the original which when backed with cracking prose and wonderful pace alongside classically complex world building and it’s a title that was really hard to put down for sleep at the end of the night. Great stuff and definitely a title I’d recommend to others, provided you’re prepared to do a little slogging first to get to the good stuff.