The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley

Title: The Tricking of Freya
Author: Christina Sunley
ISBN: 9780312378776
Publisher: St. Martin Press/2009
Pages: 352

Told in the voice of Freya, we take a journey from Gimli, a village in Canada, to Iceland. She is writing all her thoughts, her experiences for her unknown cousin. She doesn't even know if her cousin is a male or a female. But she knows she has to write it all down for that person, whom intends to find out in her lifetime.

She and her mother have always lived in Connecticut. She speaks about her mother, Anna and her aunt Birdie, her grandmother, Sigga and various other relatives, Icelandic as well as Canadian. After Birdie dies on her 14th birthday and also when her mother dies, a few years later, she is not keen to visit Gimli again. But she does go back for her very old grandmother, who wants to preserve the family history.

Again we see Freya travelling from Gimli to Iceland to learn more about her cousin. And finally when she does learn the untold secrets, she can't believe how much injustice was done to herself, her volatile aunt and her gentle mother.

It starts with Freya being seven years old and takes us through more that two decades. We too are affected when we learn the enormity of Freya being tricked. With beautiful scenics and interesting characters, the reader is moved beyond words.

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I liked the following words from the above reviewed book:

1) Kenning (page 3): Word-Meadow is a Kenning for tongue, "she explains. "And I suppose now you will want to know what a kenning is."

A kenning is a much-compressed form of metaphor, originally used in Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry. In a kenning, an object is described in a two-word phrase, such as 'whale-road' for 'sea'. Some kennings can be more obscure than others, and then grow close to being a riddle.

2) Elskan (Page 6): "Come here, elskan, and kiss your rotten aunt."

Elskan is an icelandic word meaning, honey, sweetheart or darling