Dazzling and haunting...a dark and deliciously macabre read with an unexpected twist * The Best New Children's Books 2015 *
Fast-paced and gripping * Stylist *
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. * INIS Magazine *
Luminously written ... rich and rewarding * Books For Keeps *
A dark but delightful read * SFX Magazine *
Exquisite ... as dark and captivating as you would hope * The Bookseller *
Profoundly beautiful * Recommended Reads *
David Roberts' elegant illustrations are integral to the beautiful design ... A volume to treasure and re-read * Financial Times *
Mesmeric ... another jewel in Gardner's crown * The Times *
The natural elegance of Roberts' style marries perfectly with the supernatural elements of Gardner's powerful narrative -- by turns ghostly, tender, dramatic * Books For Keeps *
Exquisite * School Zone *
A dark dream -- an exploration of memory, grief, fear, lust and love. Gardner's delicate, eerie rendering lends it a new grace * The Daily Telegraph *
Gardner's prose in Tinder is adventurous and hugely energetic ... Its a beauty * The Guardian *
An exquisitely macabre fairy story for teenagers * The Daily Telegraph *
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. * The School Librarian *
Sally Gardner has achieved yet another masterpiece, crafting an amazing story world on paper. * GUARDIAN ONLINE *
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. * CAROUSEL *
Tinder explores addiction, passion, greed, love & psychological injuries of war. It is another jewel in Gardner's crown
* The Times *
Gardner follows up her Costa-Carnegie double with an exquisite reworking of The Tinderbox fairytale, as dark and captivating as you would hope.
* The Bookseller *
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.
* Reading Zone *
David Roberts' elegant illustrations are integral to the beautiful design - almost every page is embellished. A volume to treasure and reread. * Financial Times *
This luminously written story re-introduces all the erotic and macabre features of traditional fairy tales...in rich and rewarding writing. * Books For Keeps *
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. * The Bookbag *
...Rich and rewarding writing, reminding readers never to take any fairy tales, ancient or modern, simple for granted. * Books for Keeps *
Boys and girls will find something to love in its pages; all will be transfixed by its ancient charm. * Telegraph.co.uk *
Expect more award nominations for this. * Haverhill Echo, Newmarket Journal & Suffolk Free Press *
Tinder is just a whoosh of magic, beauty, and cruel, confident storytelling * Domestic Sluttery *
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. * Stylist *
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. * The Guardian *
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. * Bookwitch Blog *
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. * Inis Magazine *
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. * Metro *
...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. * The Herald *
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 -- John Millen * Young Post, China *
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. -- Eve Seymour * Cheltenham Standard *
