David Allard, an orphan, returns to his hometown of Ashbury from boarding school to discover that his relatives-cum-guardians have nothing arranged for his summer and he will have to endure their mistreatment for his entire holiday.
David's words seem to cause the garden wall to crumble, and to release a boy a year or so older than himself with flame-red hair, who identifies himself as Luke.
Happy to have made a new friend, David notices Luke's odd references to being released from his "chains" and "bowls of venom".
That evening, David escapes punishment because his uncle is upset that his gardener has found another job over at Thunderly Hill.
The next day, David is blocked from leaving the house by two ravens – until he distracts them with a joint of meat while he drives off with Astrid.
Luke appears when David strikes a match for Astrid's cigarette, and is suddenly caught by a fair, strong ginger-haired individual.
If David restores what the ginger-haired fellow lost by Sunday, Luke will remain free, otherwise he will be sent back to prison.
David searches the hall, which is filled with strong young men cheating pinball machines, until he finds what he was told to look for—a man with a dragon tattoo.
The dragon man admits to taking the item they sought as revenge, on behalf of a woman who blamed Mr.
When David and Luke step inside "Firestone Ward", they find themselves on a grassy hillside that burns but is never consumed.
David braves the flames (with Luke doing his best to suppress the fire) and discovers a cairn, on which a hauntingly beautiful lady in armour lies, not quite dead, but barely breathing.
Astrid reveals that (no doubt with divine interference) David's other relatives have been exposed as financial frauds, and have fled.
The other gods show up on the day they give their names to in the week: David encountered the Norns under the great tree Yggdrasil, and travelled to Valhalla (afterlife for heroes on Wallsey island) with Woden and one of his Valkyries.
Science fiction author Orson Scott Card, reviewing several Diana Wynne Jones reissues in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, wrote Eight Days of Luke takes us into the world of the Nordic gods, as both sides in the intensely amoral struggle prepare for Götterdämmerung.
Yet she manages to connect their quarrels and manoeuvres with contemporary life, including giving Thor a leather-jacket gang in a pinball arcade and putting one-eyed Wutan in a business suit.
And our hero's passage from "real" to fantasy world and back again is as smooth as in the best of contemporary fantasists – Charles de Lint, for instance, or Megan Lindholm, or Lisa Goldstein.
)[1]Publishers Weekly wrote "Loosely based on Norse mythology, this story is a smooth blend of myth and reality, a task that Jones ( A Tale of Time City ) performs with ease and assurance.
"[2] Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, asked whether his 2000 novel American Gods was inspired by Eight Days of Luke, responded "Not exactly, although they bear an odd relationship, like second cousins once removed or something."