Review by Steve Fenton of Phonotonal – Music/Words/Subculture

Embers is a book of many threads. Through the core story of a mysterious ritualistic slaughter of a reindeer herd, other themes emerge and bend around this main narrative. Ellen and Simon are the youngsters at the centre of the story, motivated in part by Simon’s love of detective mysteries but also by a sense of injustice as the local police fail to take their discovery seriously.

Stop 6 of the blog tour – Novel excerpt shared by Jess, from chapter 2, which uncovers why Ellen and Simon travel north to the fictional town of Svartjokk.

‘He’s overwrought. He needs a holiday,’ Mum announced the next evening. She and Ellen were standing on the veranda in the back garden, laying the table. Dad was in the kitchen, chopping onions for the bolognese. ‘He could go with you, Ellen.’

There are two main points of inspiration that first triggered me to write Embers back in 2017, during an Arvon writing retreat in Devon, England. The first is the true crime that took place not far from the mining town where my brother and I stayed in northern Sweden during our interrailing holiday the same year. Two teenaged girls discovered a circle…

‘Just a bit further, please!’

Ellen wanted to yank her brother off his bike. They’d been cycling around Svartjokk all day, criss-crossing through the town centre, darting along the river and through the park. Now, on Simon’s insistence, they were rushing along the country road out of the town, the dense pine forest surrounding them on both sides.

I was super excited to read this novel as I had seen Josephine writing about it on Facebook for a while, so as soon as I was able, I bought a copy from Amazon and dived straight in. When I read the blurb of the book I thought why would anyone want to kill a reindeer. I have read many books where people get killed – and in particularly unpleasant ways too – but it is so shocking and intriguing to read of animals killed merely for killing’s sake…

Have you ever wondered how an author comes up with the setting and characters in their books? Join, Josephine Greenland as she talks about that very subject!

The main setting of Embers, the mining town of Svartjokk, is based on a real town in northern Sweden called Gällivare.