THE WITCH’S HEART
Loki was a bit of a player back in the day, fathering children all over the place – he even gave birth to an eight-legged horse himself (try telling the kids of today that; they won’t believe you). But not much has been written in the old Norse sagas of Angrboda, who bore three of his offspring: Hel, the queen of, er, Hel; a gigantic snake named Jormungand; and Fenrir, the wolf who helped bring about Ragnarok. In her debut novel, Genevieve Gornichec spins the backstory of Loki’s beloved, a witch and a giant who rather commendably takes birthing snakes and wolves entirely in her stride.