Thornghost

The Twistrose Key #2

by Tone Almhjell

Something strange is happening to the woods and water around Niklas Summerhill’s home: Animals are dying, Niklas’s grandmother doesn’t seem like herself, and his uncle is suddenly lost in grief over his sister, Niklas’s mother, who died seven years ago. When Niklas discovers an ancient key, he and his talking lynx companion, Secret, leave home behind to travel to a different realm. But this realm, populated by animals, is in danger as well: A tribe of evil trolls is wreaking havoc, a mysterious enemy called the Sparrow King is bringing his wrath down upon the animals, and the Rosa Toraquata, the root that connects this realm to Niklas’s own, has developed a dark twist that is infecting the land. Can Niklas and Secret save the animal realm—and their own?

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Childrens, Fiction, Magic, Young Adult, Adventure

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2016

About the author

Tone Almhjell grew up in Kristiansund and Trøndelag. Today she lives in Oslo with her husband and children. She has a master's degree in English literature from the University of Oslo, and wrote thesis on Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. She also has a Master of Science Fiction from the University of Liverpool.

Reviews

[Marie the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing. Like wow. Its breathtakingly beautiful and painful and wonderful. I adored it. So much. Magic is real.

[Karina Eliassen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had a thousand stars to give to this book. I cant think about it right now, because I'll just start crying again.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was so beautifull, so tender, so sweet, so lovely, so... it was just so perfect. Read it. Just, read it, and love it. I cant wait for my kids to get a little older and then I will read both The twistrose key and Thorneghost to them

[Rikke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautiful. Eerily creepy at times, causing me to regret that I read its first chapters in alone in the dark, but beautiful nonetheless. Tone Almhjell has created a Narnian fairy tale world that I do not want to leave.

Thornghost is filled with ghosts of the past and nightmare kings; manipulated sparrows and beloved pets who grieves the children they once shared their life with. It is a classic tale of good and evil, and it is so much more; a tale of loss and loneliness and a young boy who has only gotten to know his mother after her death.

I cannot recommended this series highly enough. While Thornghost definitely is darker than the first book in the series, both volumes equal in their sense of wonder and immersive adventures.

[Meneniareads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect greatness from this book. It's a sequel to one I didn't like all that much (it was okay, but not great). So why would this sequel be better? Well, I don't know, but it is! It is so much better than the first book! Thornghost actually reminds me of Narnia. And maybe the Twistrose Key should've too, because it is the same universe as Thornghost. But the Twistrose Key was childish and boring. Thornghost is a way better story, and feels more mature and fantastical. I loved this one!

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lives up to the confusion of the first book with even more confusing plot points and stupid villains. Still i got emotional at the end and while the villain didnt sit well with me the other characters were very fun and loveable. I found this main character much more enjoyable than the one in the first book.

[Ole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Koslig, eventyrlig og magisk, men merkelig dyster og brutal til tider.

[Marita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kombinerte lydbok i bilen+lesing hjemme. ELSKER denne boka høyere enn Vindeltorn! Nå har forfattern skrevet seg varm i trøya.

[Heinrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

MVP book of the year.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5
It made me scared, it made me cry, and it surprised me, what more could you want?

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in Norwegian. I just love this! I bought the first book - "the Twist-rose key" mainly due to the cover and was surprised at the amazing fantasy between its covers. This book can be read entirely independently from the first, but is set in the same world.

Niklas is an orphan living with his grandmother Alma in a peaceful valley. He is plagued by nightmares, as was his long-dead mother Erika. Niklas is full of mischief and makes life sour for his neighbors. He befriends a lynx, gives her the name "Tyst" ("Quiet") and discovers that there are trolls in the forest. In escaping them he and Quiet slip through a portal into another world. A world his mother let down. This is the world where all animals that were once loved by children end up.

I just love the premise and the world-building so much! There is such joy and exuberance here. There is also evil that must be fought and daring adventure. A perfect book for children, but with such great story-telling and plotting to be suitable for any age group, as long as you are a fantasy fan. Highly recommended!

[Kara]

DNFing this one on page 155. It's not a bad book, but there is a point in the story when the characters go through a tunnel into another world, and it is then that the book lost me. I liked the world I was in, I liked the way the story was unfolding, and then it felt like it took a shift in another direction that I wasn't ready for and wasn't interested in.

I may return to this at a later date when I have more time, but I have so many ARCs to get through and getting stuck in a slump really slows me down so I am going to try something else for now.

The one thing I do want to mention? This author is a great storyteller. I didn't get all the world-building answers I wanted, and I mentioned that in a previous status update, and maybe I would have gotten them later, but since I don't know that, I'm just going to mention it here.

I'd like to reiterate that I did not finish this book, for any of those that are looking to my review for answers.

[Hanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe its more of a 3,8, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. And I should say that I started reading it in English, but switched to Norwegian after a couple of chapters, since I could hear Almhjell’s Norwegian voice whispering in the background. It’s not that the English is bad, but her native Norwegian is so much better.

I like Niklas. I love Tyst the lynx (she’s called Secret in English, did I mention the Norwegian is better?) and her tough love. The beginning is dark and scary and exciting, and the end is super-suspenseful with the great plot clicking in place, and both parts are deeply emotionally satisfying. But in the middle there is a lull where you get plenty of time to wonder why you’re reading the book. I wish it wasn’t like that.

[Line · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dette er en av mine nye yndlingsbøker! Anbefales på det varmeste til både voksne og barn, alle burde lese denne!

[Zoe Birdtail · Rating 2 out of 5]

“You can go quietly if you like […]. It’s what we do when the time comes. We leave them dancing.”
First off, what a strangely beautiful quote. It’s kind of twisted, but it quite literally jumped out at me when I first read it.
Okay, so Thornghost. Being the second book in the series, the book follows Niklas’ perspective (Lin’s best friend), instead of Lin’s. Totally unexpected but it 100% worked, in my opinion. Nothing more could’ve been done with Lin’s perspective, so it was a nice breath of fresh air when I found out that this was told from Niklas’ experiences rather than Lin’s.
My opening thoughts mainly revolved around the fact that the writing was significantly better than The Twistrose Key. Almhjell totally improved in that aspect and significantly upped her writing game.
Not gonna lie though, about ¾ of the book is boring. It wasn’t until the final climax of the book that it started to get good. I read the first half of the book starving for something to spur me along, and unfortunately never got it. I then went about a week where basically no reading of this book was happening because I couldn’t find enough strength to force myself to read it. Once I overcame that “obstacle”, for lack of a better word, I then powered through the last half, finally feeling something towards the book having reached the end. It just wasn’t captivating enough, and that’s disappointing because I usually love books like this. Children’s books are the SHIT.
The only point during the book when I actually felt something was when Almhjell made Niklas leave Secret behind. TOTALLY HEARTBREAKING BTW. Why she gotta do me like that? I almost shed a tear.
Honestly, the ending came to a close nicely, but the series is kind of lacking. It’s for this reason that I give Thornghost an overall rating of 2 ½ stars.

[Dandelionsteph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until more than 100 pages in, the conflict was fairly small-scale, about trolls in the Summerhill woods. After Niklas enters Broken, the conflict in the Summerhill woods is a tacked-on afterthought, only returned to much later. Soon after being rescued by Castine and Kepler, the trolls, once a formidable threat of their own, are just underlings of the Sparrow King and thus seem less fearsome.

There's some slight ending fatigue after the main conflict is resolved. This time, Niklas is alone, just as he was in the beginning, and must deal with Rafsa's army of trolls. With the exception of a few lines from Rafsa belittling the Sparrow King, this scene could easily have taken place prior to or instead of the main plot in Broken. The book would have been better if twenty five pages were trimmed off the ending, an ending that is pointlessly sad anyway.

Going into this, I had no clue it was a companion book to The Twistrose Key. Once in Broken, the word "Twistrose" did spark some "Haven't I read about that before?" thoughts, but prior to that it works much as an unrelated book. Overall, Thornghost is essentially a 145-page book stitched to a 211-page book, with a conspicuous seam.

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to keep reminding myself that life's too short to spend time on books you aren't really enjoying. This fantasy adventure has a lot of interesting things going on, including a really bizarre world where dead animals who had a special connection to young children go on to live in an afterlife where they're sentient and humanoid, at least until their children back in the familiar world die. There are a lot of startling and interesting conceits in this book, but they felt muddled to me, buried under exposition and a quest narrative that kept shifting focus, with new goals that got abruptly or arbitrarily resolved. Above all, it felt like any given conflict was resolved by the author suddenly revealing a bunch of new rules for a world that was already pretty complicated and full of specialized terminology that struck me as a bit corny. (ie. a child called to the animal afterlife is a Twistrose, a child who refuses the call is a Thornghost, and so on.) It's a very creative and imaginative book, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I tried to.

[auri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had my breath taken away by Niklas, Tyst and Sommerhjell. As we were introduced to a larger cast of characters I fell in love again and again. This is a tale of good vs evil, but I never knew where the people and animals were taking me and couldn't put the book down, I always had to know where we were going next and what we would find there.
I never even realized I was reading a sequel and cannot wait to get my hands on the first book.

This is a book I will enthusiastically recommend to anyone who will listen, my dearest bookseller colleges or customers browsing our shelves for something new and exciting.
This is a 9+ book, but never judge a fantasy just because it's written with children in mind, there are plenty of middle grade gems.

Jeg hadde gitt denne boken tusen stjerner om jeg kunne, en ny yngling på bokhyllen, og har virkelig måtte spise mine ord om at Norsk ikke er like flott som Engelsk. Det er ingen grunn til å ikke lese på Norsk om du kan, du er da ingen pingle heller.

[Evelina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This felt a bit darker from the start compared to the previous book, in a good way. The whimsical tone from entering a realm of petlings is switched for a more sombre tale of a boy who does not want anyone’s pity. Instead he turns himself into a scoundrel-prince.

Niklas feels like he is always at a disadvantage, the odds are against him. But it never feels utterly impossible. Its breathtakingly beautiful at times. But also, very sad.

The whimsy of the first book is not completely lost though. The characters Niklas meets are delights. The mystery is genuinely hard to figure out, but when the pieces finally come together. Wow.

The story of this child feels complete by the end of the book, but ho boy do I want to read more of the world and learn more of its lore and workings. In that regard I am not finished with it.Tone Almhjell

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 stars) This is the sequel to The Twistrose Key. Niklas is concerned about the killings of animals in the forest and about his uncle and grandmother who are still deeply affected by his mother’s death. He too has disturbing dreams about her. When a prank on a neighbor goes awry and a lamb is slaughtered, Niklas begins to wonder if the troll games that he used to play with his friend, Lin, have become real. He finds an unlikely companion in the lynx that he had fed and is shocked to find that she can speak to him, and who he has named Secret. Together, they search to find the source of the trolls and the magic that is infecting their valley.Together, they enter the world that, unknown to him, his friend Lin has also journeyed to via the Twistrose key. On their journey, Niklas will find out more about his own strengths and about his mother’s tragic past that feeds his nightmares. This is a touching, bittersweet tale.

[Tibby]

This one may have been better than the first book in the series. It's certainly darker. I think these are beautifully written with lots of excellent world building, twisting plots (but not so twisty that younger readers can't keep up), and characters you can't help but love. I don't think you need to have read the first to enjoy this companion novel, and even if you have read it, the only real connection is this being a story about Niklas, Lin's friend, back at the farm Lin has come from. Loved this one as much, if not more that the Twistrose Key which I read about once a year.

[Júpiter Menfis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realmente no recuerdo mucho del primer libro, pero creo que no me equivoco cuando digo que aquel era más infantil y este genera otros sentimientos. Por momentos, tuve miedo, me dieron escalofríos, sentí melancolía... Y también volví a mi infancia, jugué, me divertí. Fue una mezcla bastante buena de ambos mundos.
Me encantó poder entender mejor el reino de los animales, la magia y las rosas. Los villanos fueron excelentes.
Y el amor... Un amor mucho más maduro que el del primer libro, que se vio obligado a recorrer diversos caminos.
Viví una gran aventura entre estas páginas.

[Rick Stuckwisch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is likely going to be one of my favorites of the year. Really enjoyed it, even more than its previous companion book, The Twistrose Key. The language just flows with beauty and ease and a wonderfully poetic quality, yet manages to tell the tale at hand with clarity. The world that Tone Almhjell has created and built for these books is fascinating and fresh. I keep thinking, this is fantasy at its best, but written for a young audience of readers and listeners. Highly, highly recommended.

[Joji Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I haven't read The Twistrose Key, so there may have been things that went a bit over my head.

This book was beautiful. It had twists and turns in the story that not only surprised me, but kept me eager to turn the page. The bond that grew between a boy and his wilder on this risky and desperate adventure was palpable. I couldn't have enjoyed it more.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover and the double map are gorgeous, but I didn't like this book as much as I loved the first one. the twistrose key is magical as a fairytale, with a strong female MC and one of the most amazing fantasy worlds I ever read. Thornghost is a lot darker and scarier than that. I didn't appreciate that we enter the magical world after so many pages, and I didn't feel connected to the main character or the animals like I wish I would. The bad guys reminded me of the sisters in the movie "Kubo and the two strings" and I was afraid of them. The lynx as the animal companion is an original and great idea, but the ending wasn't what I expected.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distinct and memorable, this magical tale forges a unique path between waking life and the dream world. It also weaves in concepts of legends and the imagined coming real in a unique way that are satisfying and bring richness to the narrative. The elusiveness of Rafsa, the mystery of the Sparrow King, and the wisdom of Secret are just some of the things that make this book stand on its own.

[Tanis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was awesome and creepy and somehow better than The Twistrose Key! Now, what I really need is a third book with both Lin and Niklas working together to solve the puzzle and get rid of the trolls for good! *crosses fingers* Please, please, please!

[Doris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off very slow, but improved after about half way through. I did feel that the boy was better built as a character than any of the adults, and I loved that his family secrets were the key to the overall story.

[Karoline Lavellan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sååå utrolig mye bedre enn den første boken! Nå var jeg faktisk interessert i handlingen og karakterene. Ble litt overrasket over hvor mørk boken kunne bli til tider, men det er jo sånt jeg liker. Jeg er ufattelig glad i dyr, så ble ofte ganske rørt.

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 8 yo received this book as part of a reading program over the summer and we didn't realize it was the second book in the series until we were already a good portion of the way through it. Things started making sense after a while (mostly) but I never felt like I was fully "into" it.

[Ida Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Denne likte jeg kjempegodt!

Maretorn er en nydelig bok som har alt: troll, mareritt, epleslang, kjæledyr, magi, spenning, savn, sorg, slåsskamper, musikk, solfylte gårdstun, og en koselig bestemor.

Grunnen til at den ikke får fullt med stjerner er at jeg syns slutten kom litt brått. Det lå så godt an til at avslutningen skulle bli det spennende høydepunktet jeg ventet på, men så ble jeg litt skuffa da det var over fortere enn forventet.

Løsningen på problemene kom litt for plutselig og litt for lett, i begge verdener, da problemet «løste seg selv». Og det siste onde som Spurvekongen gjorde hadde ingen konsekvenser? Kunne ikke Niklas ha brukt & etter adlyd-runen eller noe, for å redde Sønder??

Jeg hadde ikke hatt noe imot 10-20 sider ekstra for å dra avslutningen litt ut, for Almhjell skriver nydelig!