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Fra Norge til USA og hjem igjen. Et internasjonalt fantasy-eventyr - allerede før utgivelse spådd klassikerstatus, og sammenliknet med de største innen sjangeren.
Noe er galt i det gamle huset familien til Lin har leid, det er hun sikker på. Klokkene tikker for sakte. Rosebedet er dekket av rim, selv i øsende regnvær. Og når en mystisk nøkkel merket «Vindeltorn» dukker opp, finner Lin en sprekk i kjellerveggen. En portal til en verden ved navn Sylver.
I dette snødekte riket bor alle døde dyr som en gang har elsket et barn. Lin blir til sin store glede gjenforent med Rufus, kjæledyret hun begravde under rosebusken. Men sammen må de finne den forsvunne Vinterfyrsten hvis de skal redde Sylver fra undergang.
De er ikke de eneste som jakter på gutten denne natten. I mørket lurer en mann med skyggemunn, klar til å sette klørne i den aller siste Vinterfyrste.
Sitrende spenning og uforglemmelige rollefigurer venter leserne i dette magiske eventyret som utvilsomt vil bli en klassiker.
Fullkommen fantasy ... Alt klaffer i denne fantasyboka, som både har originalitet, spenning og et virkelig godt språk. – Cathrine Krøger, Dagbladet (Les hele anmeldelsen.)
Elementer av klassisk fantasy vakkert vevd sammen til en debutroman som vil trollbinde leserne med sitt rike plott og sin detaljerte verden. – Kirkus (starred review)
Varm og stolt som et eventyr fra Narnia – og like spennende som Harry Potter! Lucy og Hermione har fått en original og sprell levende norsk kusine! – Tor Åge Bringsværd
Denne boken er ren magi. Jeg vil flytte inn i den. – Laini Taylor, forfatter av Ønskemesterens datter
Denne debutromanen kombinerer Narnias sjarm med gnistrende trollaction. Jeg har aldri lest noe lignende, og håper Tone Almhjell skriver mange flere bøker jeg kan forelske meg i. – Erin Bow, forfatter av Plain Kate
The Independent:
If you buy only one, my children's book of the year is The Twistrose Key, a dazzling debut by Norwegian writer, Tone Almhjell (Little Brown, £10.99). She has created the stunning wintery world of Sylver, peopled by human-sized creatures who were all formerly pets. Our heroine, Lin, manages to get into the world using a key marked "Twistrose", and is reunited with her much missed pet vole, Rufus. The book has a Narnia-esque feel and possesses the plot, pace and dash of a classic.
New York Journal of Books:
“Nearly every creature who lives here was once loved by a child of Earth, and loved the child in return. That bond was so strong that when the animals died, they woke up here in Sylver to live a second life.”
This quote so aptly captures the magical wonder of The Twistrose Key, the debut novel by Tone Almhiell. If you’ve ever loved a pet that has passed on, and are willing to partake of more than a little adventure, this jewel of a story will capture your heart and your imagination.
Eleven-year-old Lin Rosenquist discovers a mysterious key when an unexpected parcel arrives to her home. She immediately connects with it and wouldn’t you know it, it opens the door of the cellar that’s been locked ever since her family moved into their rented home.
Hidden behind that cellar door lies Sylver, a world that is more amazing than even the creative mind of Lin Rosenquist can dream up. And what makes it the most amazing of all, is the discovery that her beloved Rufus is there. He’s the pet she lost in death and lies buried under the rosebush in the yard . . . or so Lin thought!
Now Rufus and Lin must join forces to save the inhabitants of Sylver, but saying it won’t be easy is an understatement. Malicious forces are doing everything in their power to see that they don’t succeed. Can Lin fulfill her destiny and conquer the evil that threatens to overwhelm her, dearest Rufus and her new compatriots? You’ll have to enter the majestic, magical world of Sylver to find out.
And a magical world it truly is. The author exhibits a rich and fertile imagination, an ability to enchant both young and old. Age is no impediment to enjoying this story.
The tale is as crisp and zesty as the cold and crystalline environ in which it is set. Readers should take their time and read with care to fully grasp and decipher the fresh mythology of the land of Sylver. It’ll leave you gasping, laughing, and maybe shedding a tear or two.
Enjoy!
Reviewer June Goodwin, LCSW, is a clinician and educator, currently counseling children classified as emotionally disturbed. She is also a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Everyone should read this book. By Hakon Soreide on October 18, 2013Format: Kindle EditionUsually I don't finish books within 24 hours of getting them, but as this was quite a page-turner, it also turned out to be an exception. Tone has simply written an amazing debut novel that has got all the elements right.
I have read my fair share of novels, in the fantasy genre and otherwise, but seldom, if ever, have I read a book with as tight and well-honed a plot as this. It seems that whatever colourful threads of narrative are spun out for the reader are all neatly woven back together, sometimes with an unexpected twist, in this lovely tapestry of a story.
Descriptive passages are very evocative, providing the readers with the necessary information so they themselves can fill in the blanks and visualise the interesting and wonderful world of Sylver. These passages are also at the same time admirably short, never slowing down the pace and flow of the story.
The characters are varied and also quite colourful. The concept of this storybook world means that Tone can pick and choose from many different animals as characters, and this she uses to full advantage. In both the description of their individual mannerisms and in some of their ways of talking, she cleverly uses traits we associate with those animals, meaning a very short description, or sometimes even just one word they use, can be enough to give them plenty of individuality.
In short, this is very efficient storytelling combined with a wonderfully imaginative and original world, lovable characters and - at the heart of it all - a cracking good and engaging story. Despite being aimed at younger readers, I think this is a book everyone should read and that most everyone will enjoy.
As an added note, I really do hope someone picks up the film rights soon. With the right production, this would make quite a blockbuster.Pure magic. By reader_CPK on October 24, 2013Format: HardcoverGorgeously written, beautifully detailed, classic fantasy that kids (including the grown-up ones) will love. A real page-turner with a clever heroine and a cast of marvelously drawn animal characters, all set in a magical wintry world that evokes the author's native Scandinavia but feels like it's entirely its own wonderful world. This book will make you chuckle, tremble, cheer and cry. It's really a gem, and the illustrations throughout are beautiful too.
The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell - review
'Fantasy books take you to another world, and The Twistrose Key does this brilliantly'
I haven't read a fantasy book in a long time, and The Twistrose Key reminded me why I love them so much: fantasy books take you to another world, and The Twistrose Key does this brilliantly.
Sylver is a place where every animal who ever loved a human child goes when they die. Although it sounds bleak, Sylver is a magical place, reminiscent of Narnia a little, with talking animals, and always in Winter. But for Sylver, Winter is needed. Every 94 years, the Wanderer star rises over both the world containing Sylver and the human world. Each time this happens, the winterfryst in Sylver creates the Wandersnow, causing it to snow all over the earth. The pure joy of every child in the world when it snows is what keeps Sylver and it's surrounding lands alive, the pure joy of children.
But when the Wanderer rises this time, there is no Winterfryst. The only remaining Winterfryst, Isvan, has disappeared. And so, a Twistrose is called - a human child called to Sylver when it is in direst need. This child is Lin, who finds in Sylver Rufus, her pet vole who recently passed away. And so Lin and Rufus are set upon the task of finding Isvan in before the end of Wanderer's eve, to enable Lin to go home , and to save Sylver.
I loved the Twistrose Key, it has everything needed for a fantasy story. Of course, it doesn't have to be believable, and this certainly isn't, but it is magical and heart-warming. It has a bit of a christmassy and wintery feel to it, and is perfect for transporting you far away, tucked up in bed on a cold winter's evening.
In a Cold Country
‘The Twistrose Key,’ by Tone Almhjell
By BRAD LEITHAUSER
Published: November 8, 2013
“The power of glaciers is waning,” we’re told in Tone Almhjell’s first novel, a fanciful tale for children called “The Twistrose Key.” This suggests a story with worldly and timely concerns — the specter of climate change — but only three of the book’s 41 chapters take place in our world and time. The others are set around Sylveros, an enchanted town nestled within the Palisade of Thorns. Outside the palisade, Nightmares roam. Inside, Petlings predominate. These are human-size, upright-walking, talking animals that were “once the favorite pet of a human child.” “The Twistrose Key” is a fantasy of the alternative-and-contiguous world sort, in which events in our world may influence theirs, and vice versa.
Enlarge This Image
Ian Schoenherr
From "The Twistrose Key."
THE TWISTROSE KEY
By Tone Almhjell
Illustrated by Ian Schoenherr
354 pp. Dial. $16.99. (Middle grade; ages 10 and up)
I suppose most fantasy fans cultivate their taste early in childhood, with myths and fairy tales. And among such fans there must be some sizable subset who, though charmed by the sunny exploits and high jinks of Greek and Roman mythology, instinctively prefer the snowy, often maddeningly incomplete annals of the Norse pantheon: Odin, Loki, Thor, Freya. (Such was my own experience, anyway.) Those readers who like their magical domains rimed with hoarfrost should find “The Twistrose Key” particularly congenial. Almhjell is Norwegian, and her town of Sylveros has the inveigling twinkle of a Nordic settlement whose creature comforts — a cup of cocoa, a crisp waffle, some warm dry clothes — are enhanced by the surrounding rigors of an icy, wind-blasted environment.
The book’s hero, Lin Rosenquist, is 11. When the story opens, she has recently buried a favorite pet, Rufus, a red-back vole. (I suppose most readers will picture a mouse.) Through Rufus’s beyond-the-grave connivance, Lin is guided into Sylveros, where much more awaits her than a reunion with a beloved vole who used to fit into her pocket but now is her size. Lin learns she is one in a line of enchanted children, called Twistroses, periodically summoned from our world to protect Sylveros from ruin. Rufus’s boosted height and strength turn out to be indispensable, since Lin soon comes under attack by a giant cat, a giant parrot and some nasty trolls. Almhjell makes bustling Sylveros seem sufficiently beguiling — with its polycolored domes and tradesmen’s signposts, its rabbit tailor, its hamster baker — that its potential destruction creates genuine foreboding. The place partakes of that human/animal hybrid charm of the home interiors in “The Wind in the Willows.”
Elsewhere, though, “The Twistrose Key” feels overstuffed, almost as though Almhjell had contemplated a multivolume series and then chose to cram all her inventions into a single book. There is an endless array of magical devices and word-coinages — Wandergates, scargates, Brain Tappers, Thorndrips, Frostfang and Sylver Fang, snow globes and guard runes — some of which I had trouble envisioning or keeping track of. I kept thinking of Groucho Marx in “Duck Soup”: “A 4-year-old child could understand this. . . . Run out and find me a 4-year-old child, I can’t make head or tail out of it.” Lin makes an appealing, stalwart heroine. I cared less than I would have liked about Rufus, however, whose character never emerged as anything beyond that of trusty servant.
The essential premise of “The Twistrose Key” — that a beloved pet can be reincarnated, can be loved into a new existence — goes to the roots of myth and fairy tale. It’s a theme always ripe for replenishment, as Margery Williams’s classic, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” shows. It goes, in this case, to the roots of written literature as well: In distant Norway a nebulous image of a singular snowy kingdom was gradually loved into existence, emerging on our shores as the appealing, solid, handsomely illustrated “Twistrose Key.”
Brad Leithauser’s “The Oldest Word for Dawn: New and Selected Poems” was published earlier this year. He was inducted into Iceland’s Order of the Falcon for his writing about Nordic literature.
Denne boka har alt en god fantasyroman skal ha
Alt klaffer i Tone Almhjells eventyrlige debutbok.
ANMELDELSE: Norske Tone Almhjell fikk tips av en kompis om å prøve seg på det store, amerikanske markedet først, med debutboka «The Twistrose Key».
Det gjorde hun lurt i. Boka er allerede kåret til en av de ti beste barnebokdebutene i USA i høst. Forståelig nok.
Alt klaffer i denne fantasyboka, som både har originalitet, spenning og et virkelig godt språk.
Avdøde kjæledyr
Elleve år gamle Lin Rosenquist er som fantasybarn flest nokså ensom, og bor i et stort, gammelt hus med sin mor og far. Hun sørger dypt over at hennes kjæledyr, den lille musa Rufus, er død. En dag mottar hun en mystisk pakke i posten, med en gammel nøkkel som fører henne mot en dør i kjelleren. Da hun åpner døra, er hun inne i et vakkert vinterlandskap. Mot henne kommer hennes kjære Rufus, i menneskestørrelse.
Ideen er like enkel som den er genial: En fantasyverden bestående av alle avdøde kjæledyr. Landet heter Sylver, og alt som skjer der er skapt av barns tanker, følelser og drømmer. Lin selv er en Twistrose; et av få menneskebarn som kan vandre mellom vår verden og Sylver. Nå trenger Sylver hjelp. Den unge isprinsen Isvan har forsvunnet, og uten ham og Vinterfyrstenes magi, kan ikke Sylver bestå. Han må reddes kommende natt, før Vandretimen som lukker porten mellom de to verdenene (noe à la Blåfjell-timen).
Troll og uhyrer
«The Twistrose Key» skal være inspirert av blant annet norske eventyr, og bygget på adventsfortellinger Almhjell laget til sin søster. Her er et landskap som kan minne om en romantisk og førjulstemt tysk middelalderlandsby. Plottet har islett av Kvitebjørn kong Valemon og Tornerose, med figurer som kan synes litt Beatrix Potter-aktige: Den snille, dumdristige og av og til engstelige Rufus, den trillrunde hamsteren Pomeroy, som lager de deiligste, fete vafler på kafeen Waffleheart. Og endelig den eldgamle, kloke reven Teodor, som har så mange hemmeligheter han holder skjult.
Selve plottet er nokså tradisjonelt. Onde krefter vil ta over Sylver, og Lin og vennene hennes må redde det, gjennom å forsere et skrekkinngytende land som består av barns marerittaktige drømmer, uhyrer og troll — og en slu katt styrt av en ond hersker. Enkelte steder kunne Almhjell med fordel dempet visse voldsomme og actionpregede effekter, som liksom bryter den eventyraktige stemningen.
Vakkert språk
Det som er mest påfallende med denne boka, er at språket er så solid. Variert og poetisk, med de vakreste bilder, lik et eventyr i seg selv. Og med en gråtevakker avslutning, i en bok som også er sorgtung på sitt vis.
«The Twistrose Key» er en enkeltstående roman. Forunderlig nok, for den har bestselgerseriepotensial i seg. Det vil jeg tro Penguin vet å utnytte.
Cathrine Krøger, Dagbladet
The Twistrose Key
by Tone AlmhjellReviewed by June Goodwin | Released: October 17, 2013
Publisher: Dial (Children) (336 pages)
“Nearly every creature who lives here was once loved by a child of Earth, and loved the child in return. That bond was so strong that when the animals died, they woke up here in Sylver to live a second life.”
This quote so aptly captures the magical wonder of The Twistrose Key, the debut novel by Tone Almhiell. If you’ve ever loved a pet that has passed on, and are willing to partake of more than a little adventure, this jewel of a story will capture your heart and your imagination.
Eleven-year-old Lin Rosenquist discovers a mysterious key when an unexpected parcel arrives to her home. She immediately connects with it and wouldn’t you know it, it opens the door of the cellar that’s been locked ever since her family moved into their rented home.
Hidden behind that cellar door lies Sylver, a world that is more amazing than even the creative mind of Lin Rosenquist can dream up. And what makes it the most amazing of all, is the discovery that her beloved Rufus is there. He’s the pet she lost in death and lies buried under the rosebush in the yard . . . or so Lin thought!
Now Rufus and Lin must join forces to save the inhabitants of Sylver, but saying it won’t be easy is an understatement. Malicious forces are doing everything in their power to see that they don’t succeed. Can Lin fulfill her destiny and conquer the evil that threatens to overwhelm her, dearest Rufus and her new compatriots? You’ll have to enter the majestic, magical world of Sylver to find out.
And a magical world it truly is. The author exhibits a rich and fertile imagination, an ability to enchant both young and old. Age is no impediment to enjoying this story.
The tale is as crisp and zesty as the cold and crystalline environ in which it is set. Readers should take their time and read with care to fully grasp and decipher the fresh mythology of the land of Sylver. It’ll leave you gasping, laughing, and maybe shedding a tear or two.
Enjoy!
Reviewer June Goodwin, LCSW, is a clinician and educator, currently counseling children classified as emotionally disturbed. She is also a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
http://bookbabblers.co.uk/2013/11/review-of-the-twistrose-key-by-tone-almhjell/