The Unmorrow Curse

Buzz has quite enough problems in his life, with bullying at school, his mother (on an expedition in South America) has gone missing and his father seems somewhat disconnected from what is going on.  When a new pupil, Mari starts at his school, things start to get a bit weird.  Firstly, a local reporter goes missing, only to turn up tied to a tree in the nearby wood and saying that she is the Norse goddess Sunna and has been kidnapped by Loki.  Then the two children begin to experience the modern equivalent of Groundhog Day, where events keep repeating themselves, in this instance it is a repetition of their Saturday; it seems that they have managed to trigger something called the ‘Unmorrow Curse’ and if they cannot find a way of breaking the curse, it could mean the end of the world, or Ragnarok in Norse mythology.  Buzz and Mari need to find items called the Runes of Valhalla and then wake the Day Guardians, so that they can stop Loki from creating chaos and start the world again.

Stories with a background in ancient mythologies have become very popular over the last decade or so, possible due to the influence of the Percy Jackson novels and their follow-ons.   The trend for Norse stories may be partly due to the fact that they are set closer to home than some of the other series and the character of Loki (the trickster God) makes a perfect villain for the heroes to fight.  In this story we have the added issues around family relationships and also the effects of bullying.  Whilst Buzz’s father is a professor of mythology, Buzz is not interested in the subject, so all of this is very irritating to begin with.  This is a fast-moving adventure story, where the two heroes find themselves on a quest to save the world. They might be young, but they are full of determination and they make many surprising discoveries about themselves and others around them as they follow their quest.