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 isdangerous.Or so everyone thinks. But Maddyenjoysworking 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 superblyimaginative.

Joanne Harrisis one of our best-loved and most versatile novelists. She first appeared on the scene with the bestsellingChocolat(made into an Oscar-nominated film with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp), which turned into the sensuous Lansquenet trilogy (withLollipop ShoesandPeaches for Monsieur le Curé). 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 nowDifferent 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.