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 was born with a rusty-coloured runemark on her hand - a symbol of the old gods and definitely cause for suspicion. For magic is dangerous. Or so everyone thinks. But Maddy enjoys working magic. Even if it is just to control some pesky goblins. And every time her friend, One-Eye - a good-for-nowt Outlander - comes by, he teaches her more and more about the gods and the runes. Now he wants Maddy to open Red Horse Hill and descend into World Below to retrieve a relic of the old gods. Otherwise it is likely to be the End of Everything. Again...An epic romp into the heart of the old Norse tales: wild, dangerous, richly inventive and superbly imaginative.

Especially enjoyable are Harris' aphorisms, her satire of joyless piety and the comically irreverant vernacular spoken by a dissolute goblin and the trickster god Loki -- Nicolette Jones The Sunday Times Joanne Harris deploys a big cast in relentless action across a cosmic panorama. This is a mighty feat of storytelling and a fascination re-envisionment of Norse mythology Books for Keeps Her dramatic story rollocks along for 536 pages with magical transformations, nets of blue fire and a spunky heroine -- Amanda Craig The Times This is a fantastic romp through the world of ancient magic, which should appeal to all adventure lovers aged 10-12 and above -- Ruth Coleman Inis

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.