Runemarks by Joanne Harris

13 year old Maddy is shunned by her village, and her own family for her ruinmark - a birth mark shaped like a rune that is a source of magic. Her mother, incidentally, is dead. Alas, I am totallyover stories where people discover their true specialness.

Runemarks draws heavily on Norse mythology - the central conflict is between a newer, monotheistic and totalitarian religion, and the old gods whom Maddy knows. For Maddy's only friend in the whole world is the wanderer known as One-Eye. No prizes for guessing who.

Now, I'm big on Norse mythology. I wasn't going to review Runemarks initially - I first read the reader much earlier in the year - because I felt my familiarity with the stories perhaps made me biased. I changed my mind.

One of the things that bothered me was Harris's portrayal of the goddesses. Frigg is the only one portrait positively; Freya's a ditz, Skadhi is bitter and twisted, Hel is deluded and lovesick. This seemed wrong to me: neither Odin nor Loki got such a harsh, one-sided treatment. That and the absence of any likeable adult woman sat ill with me.

Harris is also obviously one of those who is a little in love with Loki. Fair enough; I'm the same. But I think maybe she did take away too much of his darkness - he was a loveable rogue rather than actually dangerous.

I also found the end of the story confusing - as if she'd dug herself such a deep hole, there was no way to get out of it with clarity. Which was a pity, because it had been an engaging story, and I love the myths so much. But the sum of it all was a disappointment.

At the Random House Roadshow, when they introduced this book, they said that everyone who had read it raved about it. My workmate Saskia certainly enjoyed it. And I wonder if we were reading the same book. But perhaps being able to identify exactly where Harris has done things different from the stories - even if I don't mind - maybe it just isn't conductive to enjoying a book. But I don't know; Neil Gaiman's always had me convinced.