The Twistrose Key

Tone Almhjell introduces herself:

1. I have a master's in English Literature from the University of Oslo. My thesis was on The Lord of the Rings, my favorite book since I was eleven.
2. I'm married to a Norwegian-American named Peter Brown  not the famous writer, but to make up for it, he's very handsome. We have two wonderfully stubborn kids, a boy of three and a girl of one.
3. I'm incredibly close with my siblings. My brother Eivind wrote the music for the story's Margrave's Song, and my sister Line is the inspiration for Lindelin Rosenquist, the book's hero. All three of us live in Grünerløkka in Oslo, where we like to drink coffee, quote Star Wars, and discuss grammar.
4. My parents were teachers, and my father also the school librarian, so I grew up in a house full of books.
5. I really love animals, and have shared my home with cats, hamsters, gerbils, parakeets, and a beloved rabbit called Josef. Some of them were buried under a lilac bush (and you'll understand the importance of that once you read the novel).
6. As a child, I used to sneak out at night when my parents were sleeping. I would steal ladders from around the neighborhood and climb onto various rooftops to see the stars. (Apparently it didn't occur to me that I could fall down!) I'm not sure why the stars looked so much more wonderful to me when they were watched in secret. But I sometimes get the same feeling when I read a perfect book.
7. I worked as a journalist for five years before deciding that, no, I couldn't really see the stars from that position. So I quit my job, sold my apartment, moved to Oslo, and sat down to write. It took me seven years to finish The Twistrose Key.

1. I began writing the story shortly after my little gerbil Gwen died. This happened when I was the tender age of, oh, 31.
2. It started out as an advent calendar, 24 one-page chapters glued into a book for my sister. It was called Line and the Snow Boy and featured all of our favorite places and pets.
3. Consequently, almost all of the settings and characters in the novel are based on reality. For instance, Summerhill is the farm where I spent every summer growing up. It's actually called Almhjell, or Elmhill, because of the gigantic elm tree in the yard. Together with my siblings and cousins, I would climb the morello trees, swim in the stream called the Summerchild, and let our fantastic grandmother spoil us with perfect chocolate cake, sweet buns, and rice pudding.
4. The sled ride at the beginning of the story really happened --gulp! One winter, all of my rambunctious cousins piled onto a huge old sled they had found in the barn and set off down the mountainside. The sled wasn't magical, so it crashed into a tree and broke into a hundred pieces. Incredibly, nobody was hurt.
5. The mountains mentioned in chapter one, the Trollheim Mountains, are real, too. They're one of the most beautiful parts of Norway, especially the valley called Innerdalen, where they serve the best waffles you will find anywhere on this earth. I've never encountered any trolls up there, but that doesn't mean you won't.
6. My fat hamster Claus would have liked Innerdalen, because he truly did love waffles like no rodent before him. And Lass was my grandmother's dog, a Norwegian Buhund who could curl her tail into a knot when she was happy. Like all farm dogs, she was very brave and very diligent. She wasn't too fond of children though, so that's where the gruff manners come from.
7. I have never met a bear in real life. But I did have a very clumsy, sweet-natured teddy bear with close-set eyes.
8. Oldtown is in real life Bakklandet, a pretty neighborhood of old wooden houses in the Norwegian city of Trondheim. I wrote the first paragraph of The Twistrose Key sitting in my favorite coffee shop across from Mrs. Ichalar's house.
9. Edvard Uriarte's last name is taken from a doorbell in Bakklandet. (Sorry, Mr. Uriarte! I'm pretty sure you're not really a villain.)