Seventeen-year-old Martha can see things when she touches other people’s clothes. Their pasts, their hopes for the future and their emotions. It started with an accident involving the ancient tree in her grandmother’s garden. One that caused her to lose an eye. And one that she doesn’t remember. 

Overwhelmed by her new abilities and hiding her scarred face from the world, Martha writes to her grandmother in Norway seeking answers. But Martha’s letters go unanswered, and her mother won’t speak of what happened during the accident. So Martha takes matters into her own hands by sneaking away from her London home and hopping on a flight to Norway to visit her grandmother. 

Instead of a warm welcome into her grandmother’s cosy cabin, Martha finds her grandmother gone and an intruder in her place; a teenage runaway goth-boy called Stig. After a warm recommendation from Gandalf, her grandmother’s dog, and the fact that he has nowhere to go in the freezing night, Martha reluctantly lets Stig stay in the cabin. 

Warnings from neighbours about a wolf in the area, and strange noises in the dark ramp up the tension and spark a bond between the teenagers. Despite the dangerous beast roaming the forest and supernatural movements in the cabin, Martha can’t help but have romance on the mind.

Will anything come of it? They’ll have to survive first. 

Set on a remote island in contemporary Norway in late winter, the long hours of darkness, off-grid cabin and patchy phone signal make an excellent setting for this spooky novel steeped in Norse mythology. I rarely read horror novels, but I tore through this one, and I must admit, it scared me a little! The setting also made me want to hibernate for the winter. A thrilling read!