[This is a review I wrote in 2007]

**A Glittering and Spellbinding Nordic Fantasy**

A truly spellbinding fantasy trilogy, with an icy cold sorceress at its very core.

The evil Gudrun, coming from a frozen land beyond the ends of the earth, strikes fear into the hearts of all she touches. Her power is her sorcery. Her weapons are evil magic spells and runes. Her vision reaches beyond the realms of the naked eye.

Through these three short novels we follow Jessa, the orphaned daughter of wealthy landowners. Uprooted by the evil Gudrun at the beginning of the story, Jessa is exiled with her cousin to a harsh and distant land where Gudrun's own son has already been held in captivity for many years.

Jessa, however, is a strong-willed girl, and determined not to be defeated...

I found this so captivating and with such a good pace to it, I literally couldn't put it down until I'd finished all three! Great for all ages 10+. ( )

Drawing inspiration from Norse mythology and Scandinavian sagas, Catherine Fisher weaves an enchanting web filled with interesting and intriguing story lines, likeable characters (with two very strong female characters: one clever and the other terrifying), all too believable dark spells and magic, and an atmosphere that conjures up the cold beauty of northern Scandinavia. Written for children as the target audience, the prose is beautiful but relatively simple, with just the odd unfamiliar word here and there, and plot lines that are easy to follow, but the real attractions of this book for me were the evocative descriptions of the landscape in all its diversity: bleak marshes and moorlands, dark and sinister forests, desolate plains of snow and ice, but also the brief beauty of a Scandinavian midsummer with its abundance of flora against a backdrop of fjords and mountains, not forgetting the warm comfort and safety of the Jarlshold with its large fireplaces. I wish she had paid equal attention to the plot, as the second book contains a hole large enough to drive a tractor through, the characterisations are fairly two-dimensional and, in the case of the villain in book 2, fairly transparent, with few real surprises, and big question marks are left hanging over certain aspects of the plot in books 1 and 3; that said, the stories are well written and tense, and the very different nature of the quests in each of the three books kept me engaged and eager to pick up the book again. The device of removing the witch Gudrun from the action worked rather well, as she was a far more terrifying influence from afar where she could work her magic mischief. I think that children from the age of 9 upwards, who are confident readers, and maybe even their parents, will thoroughly enjoy reading about the adventures of Jessa, Kari, Brochael, Wulfgar and the poet Skapti. ( )

Deze prachtige triologie gaat over de strijd tussen Gudrun, de wrede machtsbeluste heks van het IJsvolk, en Kari, haar zoon en evenbeeld. Het verhaal speelt zich af in een middeleeuws Noorwegen, en is gebaseerd op Noord-Germaanse mythologie.
Het is absoluut één van mijn lievelingsboeken: Meeslepend, spannend, mysterieus, ontroerend. ( )

Scandinavia, ya, norse mythology, cold, snow, ice, northern lights, evil queen, fantasy, prim, medieval, monster child ( )