While isolated and friendless in World War II Cornwall, Nora, a precocious American adolescent, loses her younger half-brother in a car crash. Overwhelmed by grief, Nora's mother becomes involved with Olaf Winter, the self-professed necromancer Nora believes is responsible for the accident. Desperate to win back her mother's love from the nefarious Mr. Winter, Nora embarks on an epic journey and is plunged into a world of faeries, giants, and homunculi. Eventually she reaches the land of the dead where she confronts the dark king who rules that realm, attempts to retrieve her half-brother, and heal her mother's broken heart. The Dark King Swallows the World twists various genres into one and creates a fantastical world that is part Dante, part C. S. Lewis, and in the end, absolutely original. Nora, the main character, is complex and brilliant, curious and imaginative, as is the language Robert Penner uses in this story that rises toward the light.
