Seven o'clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the End of the World, and goblins had been at the cellar again. Maddy Smith has always been an outsider. In a world ruled by the harsh and puritanical Order, she is shunned for the strange birthmark on her left hand. For this is no ordinary birthmark - it is a runemark, a sign of the old gods. In fact, Maddy can do things that no-one else can, things that could be called magic. But not until she meets the old traveller One-Eye, an outsider like herself, does she learn what power she really has, and what she will be asked to do with it. In "Runemarks", Joanne Harris creates a world not unlike our own - if it had been shaped by the Vikings instead of the Romans - and colours it with her familiar blend of rich imagery and gritty realism. A disenchanted world, where the gods died long ago. Can Maddy bring them back to life?

Odin, Loki and the other Norse gods come to life in this hugely imaginative novel from the bestselling author of Chocolat .

About the Author
Joanne Harris is one of our best-loved and most versatile novelists. She first appeared on the scene with the bestselling Chocolat (made into an Oscar-nominated film with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp), which turned into the sensuous Lansquenet trilogy (with Lollipop Shoes and Peaches for Monsieur le Cure). She has since written acclaimed novels in such diverse genres as fantasy based on Norse myth (Runemarks, Runelight, The Gospel of Loki), and the Malbry cycle of dark psychological thrillers (Gentlemen & Players, Blueeyedboy, and now Different Class). Born in Barnsley, of an English father and a French mother, she spent fifteen years as a teacher before (somewhat reluctantly) becoming a full-time writer. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE. She lives in Yorkshire, plays bass in a band first formed when she was sixteen, works in a shed in her garden, spends far too much time online and occasionally dreams of faking her own death and going to live in Hawaii.

Reviews
"Loved Runemarks...a core fantasy much like the stories of David Eddings or Terry Brooks, with a cool twist on Norse mythology" -- Stephenie Meyer "An inventive, moving and witty novel that is hard to put down" TES "If the likes of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights had you bewitched, then Runemarks is certainly worth a read." Heat Magazine "Joanne Harris, best known as the author of Chocolat, is good at beginnings and pay-offs: each of the chapters in this nine-part fantasy epic has a punchy finish that makes you want to read on...Especially enjoyable are Harris's aphorisms, her satire of joyless piety, and the comically irreverent vernacular spoken by a dissolute goblin and the trickster god Loki" The Sunday Times "She is so terrific, she can write about anywhere, anything, anyone." Daily Telegraph



Book Information
ISBN 9780552778985
Author Joanne Harris
Format Paperback
Page Count 528
Imprint Black Swan
Publisher Transworld Publishers Ltd
Weight(grams) 367g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 127mm * 33mm