The Night of the Scourge

A riveting and epic family drama set in WWII-era Norway, award-winning author Lars Mytting's The Night of the Scourge is the final novel in the internationally bestselling Sister Bells trilogy

Butangen, Norway, the years before WWII: Astrid Hekne has inherited the fighting spirit and hypersensitivity of her grandmother, who was a protector of the mythic Sister Bells that had once hung in the village's centuries-old stave church.

The priest Kai Schweigaard, now in his eighties, is wondering how his death, prophesied in a centuries-old tapestry, will come to pass. He delves into the myths about the Night of the Scourge, which, according to old village beliefs, is when the known world will be scraped down to bare rock.

Then Norway is occupied by the Nazis. Astrid joins the Resistance, and Kai is thrown out of his own church. A suspected betrayal within Astrid's own family unites the Sister Bells in Dresden. Special effort and sacrifice, not only from the Hekne family, will be needed to combat the postwar rumours and mistrust.

This family drama, set in the tumultuous times of WWII, beautifully completes the Sister Bells trilogy. But while it connects to the previous books in surprising and thrilling ways, it can also be read as a standalone, a beautiful novel of magical realism that intertwines Norwegian folklore and myths with a rich story of hardship and passion.

Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin

Praise for The Bell in the Lake - a Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month

"A beautiful example of modern Norwegian folklore" Guardian

"Lyrical, melancholy and with beautifully drawn characters" Daily Mail

"Mytting's cleverly crafted story heads inexorably to a moving conclusion" Sunday Times

Lars Mytting writes with an insight, empathy and integrity few others can match Jo Nesbo
Love, suspense, nature and superstition are woven together in this powerful novel... [A] taste of something deeply and genuinely Norwegian Maya Lunde
An exquisitely atmospheric novel... The Bell in the Lake does what fiction promises: to steal you away to another world and ask you, if unfairly, to leave a little of your heart behind Derek B. Miller
Mytting weaves a compelling saga of love, both lost and found, and of a country in the midst of change Sunday Times
The Reindeer Hunters... hints at the magnetic pull of superstitions that thread beneath the conscious mind like 'veins of silver and slag'. It also maps an age of rapid change... [A] craftily woven tale steeped in rich local dyes Financial Times

Lars Mytting, a novelist and journalist, was born in Favang, Norway, in 1968. His novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme) was awarded the Norwegian National Booksellers' Award and has been bought for film. Norwegian Wood has become an international bestseller, and was the Bookseller Industry Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2016. His novel The Bell in the Lake was a number one bestseller in Norway and nominated for the Norwegian National Bookseller's Award 2018.

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