Otto Hundebiss is tired of war, but when he defies Death he walks a dangerous path. A half beast half man gives him shoes and dice which will lead him deep into a web of dark magic and mystery. He meets the beautiful Safire – pure of heart and spirit, the scheming Mistress Jabber and the terrifying Lady of the Nail. He learns the powers of the tinderbox and the wolves whose master he becomes. But will all the riches in the world bring him the thing he most desires?
Fairy tales are often the cruellest stories of all; in this exquisite novel Sally Gardner writes about great love and great loss.
Fairy tales are often the cruellest stories of all; in this exquisite novel Sally Gardner writes about great love and great loss.
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Reviews
A powerful blend of timeslip fantasy, science fiction and coming of age novel, its central theme is memory and the part it plays in constructing who we are.
Sally Gardner has achieved yet another masterpiece, crafting an amazing story world on paper.
a complex story with constantly changing plots. Some emotionally challenging, but, when all the connections are made, the reader is taken on an exciting, and fulfilling, journey.
Tinder explores addiction, passion, greed, love & psychological injuries of war. It is another jewel in Gardner's crown
Gardner follows up her Costa-Carnegie double with an exquisite reworking of The Tinderbox fairytale, as dark and captivating as you would hope.
The Carnegie Medal-winning author has produced another astonishing tour de force and one that could not be more different from the dystopian Maggot Moon and yet is almost certainly bound for similar glory.
David Roberts' elegant illustrations are integral to the beautiful design - almost every page is embellished. A volume to treasure and reread.
This luminously written story re-introduces all the erotic and macabre features of traditional fairy tales...in rich and rewarding writing.
Tinder is, as ever, with Ms Gardner's books, beautifully written, moving and engrossing, and for lovers of the dark and doom-ridden, it is well worth reading.
...Rich and rewarding writing, reminding readers never to take any fairy tales, ancient or modern, simple for granted.
Boys and girls will find something to love in its pages; all will be transfixed by its ancient charm.
Expect more award nominations for this.
Tinder is just a whoosh of magic, beauty, and cruel, confident storytelling
Gardner's narrative is fast-paced and gripping, but most of all it manages to mix in witches, wolves and black magic, all the while being though provoking.
She [Gardner] has noted and exploited, ingeniously and powerfully, the connection between The Tinderbox and the story of Prometheus, and this mythic underpinning gives her pell-mell fantasy both coherence and a satisfying richness... It's a beauty.
Sally has really worked magic on this old story, and it is fascinating and exciting, as well as creepy. You can barely put it down.
Her use of language is intensely visual as she evokes her sumptuous and macabre scenarios... Ultimately we are in the hands of a consummate storyteller.
Gardner's language is as simple and clear as a forest spring. Delicate images ('a moth's meal of a cloak') meet big coarse ones ('a spit-roasted sort of face') to create a tapestried, intricate landscape, full of mystery, grief, terror and seduction.
...The truly breathtaking publication of this season is Sally Gardner's Tinder, a book that is both a dark, haunting fairytale with werewolves and treasures, but also a horrifying exploration of war and its impact on young men.
Tinder retells Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinderbox as a dark dream- an exploration of memory, grief, fear, lust and love. Gardner's delicate, eerie rendering lends it a new grace...
an extraordinary piece of older teen fiction, full of menace, excitement and beauty. This is one book that cannot be recommended highly enough
Written primarily for young adults, the beautifully crafted narrative is one of those rare, haunting pieces of fiction that, as soon as you finish, you want to return to and read it again ....... It's a love story, a tale of epic courage and endurance, a fairy tale with sorcery and secrets, and a ghost story. But at its hearts Tinder is about the true cost of war, the terrible damage it inflicts and the high personal price paid by those caught in its jaws.
Dazzling and haunting...a dark and deliciously macabre read with an unexpected twist
Fast-paced and gripping
Profoundly beautiful and thought-provoking ... mesmeric ... ultimately, we are in the hands of a consummate storyteller who provides her readers with nothing less than a meditation on desire, maturation, reality and death.
Luminously written ... rich and rewarding
A dark but delightful read
Exquisite ... as dark and captivating as you would hope
Profoundly beautiful
David Roberts' elegant illustrations are integral to the beautiful design ... A volume to treasure and re-read
Mesmeric ... another jewel in Gardner's crown
The natural elegance of Roberts' style marries perfectly with the supernatural elements of Gardner's powerful narrative -- by turns ghostly, tender, dramatic
Exquisite
A dark dream -- an exploration of memory, grief, fear, lust and love. Gardner's delicate, eerie rendering lends it a new grace
Gardner's prose in Tinder is adventurous and hugely energetic ... Its a beauty
An exquisitely macabre fairy story for teenagers