Synopsis
An ancient forest. A bell that splinters. A boy who has lost something precious.
Sigurd lives a quiet life in the Forest, far away from the Jarl’s court. He chops wood. He hunts. He is careful to stay inside when darkness falls.
The Forest is ancient and full of dangers, but Sigurd’s little hut under the oak tree is a safe haven. Sigurd does not know why it is so; he just knows that it is. Until one morning, when everything changes.
Sigurd’s beloved sister Svanhild disappears, and he must leave the Forest home he shares with her and his grandmother to embark on a quest to find her. But Sigurd is soon swept up in events that are bigger than him. Political intrigue and secret plans, warmongering and murder, and greatest of all, the invasion of the Forest by a dark power that threatens everything he knows.
When he encounters Myrhat, a strange Forest creature and one of the mythical Bellmakers, he realises that there is something very sinister about his sister’s disappearance. Together, Sigurd and Myrhat must journey through the Forest, slowly unravelling the truth about the darkness that is seeping through it, and about Sigurd’s own past.
Reviews
"A solid plot in a complete, compelling, medieval universe" – (Fyens Stiftidende)
"Here’s an author with something urgent to say " – (Weekendavisen)
"Really delicious fantasy " – (Bibliotekattens Bøger (well-known Danish librarian blogger))
"... but Eriksen’s real masterstroke is this: The mythology is rooted in the narrative style of folk tales, but at the same time she makes her narrated world so physically tangible that it becomes believable. Real nature intertwines with invented, and the two make each other sparkle." – (Superkultur.dk)
"Five stars won’t do it. This book is: SO. GOOD! Why is there no more hype around it? Why aren't more people advertising it? It's world class fantasy. The language is seductive, the characters lively and the action nerve-wrackingly exciting. It all comes beautifully together, and I can by no means praise this book enough at all. Read it, read it!" – Julie Day (Fan on Goodreads)
"This universe simply took my breath away. EVERYTHING about this book is formidably amazing. The story is ominous in a Viking-like setting. The writing style is perfect. Almost every single sentence was so wonderful that it made my book heart overflow with the joy of reading." – Marlene Bendtsen (Fan on Goodreads)
Personal note from the author
Once I came across three bells in Worcester, it was in 2016 and my first book had not been published yet. I took a picture of them, because my trilogy, The Silent Three, was exactly about three bells; three bells without sound and with a magical and strange power. But for me, they were more than that; for me, The Silent Three is about sorrow, and every book is its own bell, and every bell is its own part of the sorrow, and what is all this sorrow doing in a fantasy series?, you might now think. But that was what I needed to write about.
“You feel that the author has an urgent story to tell”, Weekendavisen (read: a weekly Danish newspaper) wrote about the first book and this sentence means something special to me. Now the series is complete: finally, the story has come together; finally, I have put into words what was stirring in my heart.
