"No one can tell the story of you, but you. Some people are gifted with a gilded tongue. They will tell you who you are with such conviction that you may actually believe them, but this is a reflection, not the truth, for the story of you is not yet written."
from The Twisted Tree by Rachel Burge
The Twisted Tree is a fantastic bildungsroman novel. It incorporates magic, mythology, romance, fantasy and ghosts. It is one of those stories that takes you to another world, hidden on the very edge of our own world and it is quite a page turner.
Set in Norway, it's all snowy and white, but a dark danger lurks beneath the beauty. It is a book of duality. There is a cosy cabin in the snow and a fearsome creature in the woods. Is it a wolf? A troll? Or something else?
There is also a Norwegian Byronic Hero love interest and as I like my men from the North, he had me hooked from page 28! The romance is subtle as this is a YA novel, but it helps to move along this character driven plot at quite a fast pace.
When Martha runs away from her London home to visit her grandmother in Norway, she is drawn to discover more about her own past. Martha is magical in her own right, having the gift of psychometry, which developed after falling from the twisted tree in her grandmother's garden and she wants to know how to control this new power. Her explorations lead her deep into the world of Norse mythology, where she discovers her true ancestry as a descendant of the Norns.
As I was reading this book, it took me right back to Strathpeffer and the beautiful wood tree-carvings of The Norns that stand guard there.
This is Verandi. She is the kindest of the three Norns and she carries the fabric of all life, made as the sisters weave all of our threads together. She is the one to invoke for matters of second chances and it was this wood carving that was the focus of a love spell I cast a few years ago, when I needed to get back in touch with my soldier and Highlander friend, Alexander. Sometimes you have to revisit the past in order to deal with the present and move on to the future. Verandi understands this and my spell was successful.
Both these goddesses are significant in The Twisted Tree and they play a vital role in Martha's story, as she is swept down into the Norse Underworld to meet Hel and to keep Skuld, the third Norn, from severing the life-thread of someone close to her.
Here you can just see Skuld on the right of the tree-carving - her face is covered as only the dead get to look at her. She carries the shears that cut the thread of life and is therefore a goddess of death and rebirth. So it's fair to say that Martha has her work cut out!
The Twisted Tree is a brilliant book. When I picked it up to read it, I wasn't expecting to be taken back to Strathpeffer in my mind, but it has rekindled my love for that place and made me want to return there. It has also made me dream of going off to Norway one year for a wintry snowy holiday. I would love to do that.
It's a great novel, full of magical, mysterious adventure and quite a few ghosts. I also think it's set up for a sequel... so I'll be keeping an eye out for that - that's a clue! Read the book to get the joke.
BB Marie x
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