From the Publisher
“The world Mytting creates is immersive, including descriptions of reindeer hunting and the feel of a scythe on a whetstone. The result is a fascinating story with centuries old echoes, their muted peal resonating like the separated sister bells.”
— Booklist
“The first novel of the trilogy was a hard act to follow, but Mytting has triumphed again with this sequel. As in the earlier novel, Deborah Dawkin is a sensitive translator. The books can be read as standalones, but there is a different richness in the combination, just as there is in the sound of two bells rung together rather than apart.”
— Historical Novels Review
“A masterful and spellbinding piece of storytelling . . . The stories of three men are superbly merged, with each chapter having an enigmatic end – not wanting to end, but then instantly engrossing with the beginning of next chapter. The magnificently developed characters engage with their stories, exploring the ups and downs that life throws at them . . . A spellbinding tale with beautifully explored themes of life.”
— Mystery and Suspense Magazine
“Lars Mytting’s epic, enchanting historical novel The Reindeer Hunters ushers a remote Norwegian village into the modern age . . . In this spellbinding historical saga, love and lore have an alchemistic effect.”
— Foreword Reviews, *starred* review
Kirkus Reviews
2022-09-28
A sprawling novel about a small Norwegian village and a young man pursuing his fate.
When Mytting’s latest novel begins, it is 1903. Jehans Hekne is an orphan. He never knew his parents, whose story drove The Bell in the Lake (2020), the first installment in what Mytting has configured as a trilogy. Jehans grows up in the same small Norwegian village as his mother, and Pastor Kai Schweigaard, whom readers of the first book will remember, takes a special interest in his upbringing. Schweigaard is preoccupied by a search for a missing tapestry woven centuries ago by Jehans’ ancestors Halfrid and Gunhild, conjoined twins who became extraordinarily talented weavers. Meanwhile, Jehans meets a mysteriously familiar British hunter in the woods and, at the same time, deepens a rift with the uncle who keeps him locked in a kind of indentured servitude. The plot of this second leg of Mytting's trilogy isn’t nearly as taut as the first—indeed, it grows baggy and unwieldy as the book goes on, eventually stretching to encompass World War I and the 1918 influenza epidemic. Nor are the characters nearly as well developed as their predecessors: In the first book, Jehans’ mother, Astrid, was a force to be reckoned with; in the second, Jehans himself remains undeveloped and unknowable. Mytting is most successful in his depictions of cloistered, claustrophobic Norwegian communities and their spiritual and cultural traditions, from hunting reindeer to churning butter and weaving. There are moments of beauty in the book—a scene in which Jehans buys a rifle is particularly moving—but neither the characters nor the storyline ever get their feet off the ground.
The second installment in Mytting’s trilogy doesn’t quite carry the power and charm of the first.
