Book Review 001 : The Twisted Tree

The Twisted Tree is one of two Rachel Burge’s Amazon bestselling books that catches many creepy-fiction-loving bookworms. She works as a freelance writer that loves to convey her thoughts into writing for mere websites such as BBC worldwide, Cosmo and MTV. Having a wonderful life, Rachel lives in East Sussex with her partner and a son. She started writing the book in 2016 after completing a tarot course with Maddy Elruna. As well as being an amazing tarot reader, Maddy is a person who believes in the Nordic gods like Odin, Thor and Freya. Each of these gods had various characteristics, weaknesses and attributes. There was a card which intrigued Rachel’s imagination and Maddy explained how it illustrates Odin, who hung himself from the world tree, Yggdrasil. Therefore, Rachel took this myth and gave it an extraordinary twist which resulted in The Twisted Tree.

A partially blinded teenager, called Martha, can tell a person’s secret just by touching their clothes after she fell from the tree at her grandma’s (Mormor) cabin in Norway. She wants to know the reason why she got that ability so she asked to her mother. Disheartened with not getting the answers from her mother and accidentally touched her mother’s cloth, Martha knew that her mother burned Mormor’s letters for her. So, she sets off to travel to Norway and asked her grandmother. Surprisingly, she got the news that Mormor was dead a week ago and encountered Stig – a stranger, teenage boy that lived in Mormor’s house. As the time goes by, Martha fell something menacing – she saw the tree beside Mormor’s cabin changed as an enormous grey trunk with three times the height of the cabin. She started to saw her descendant, the Odin, that chasing her and Stig’s life away.

I am realizing that I love how Martha dealing with many complex situations with her ability – she tried to comfort Stig’s past that full of regret and her point of view tackling terrifying scenes. Stig also a gripping character. I could feel the warmth when he said that he loves Martha for who she is and help Martha to discovered groundbreaking facts about her descendant. Perhaps my favorite element of the book is how Rachel write it linked to Norse mythology in a clear and full of imagination ways.