This imaginative, inventive middle-grade fantasy from UK writer Sophie Kirtley is set on a remote farm in Ireland. Twelve-year-old Edie and her younger brother, Pip, are staying with their paternal grandmother, Lolly, while their widowed mother attends a conference. They haven’t been to the farm for a few years, since before their father died, and Edie is having great trouble trying not to think about him because the memories are too painful.
What Edie discovers is a diary written by her dad when he was about her age and some newspaper clippings about a missing Viking sword discovered nearby. She can also hear whispers on the wind and finds Post-it notes with kennings written on them. Lolly is also keeping secrets. Edie sets out to go exploring and faces the terrible spectre of Ivaar the Restless, who wants his sword back, and the ghost of Lolly’s sister Coco, who has it hidden.
As Lolly prepares to sell the farm, she starts going through the boxes of possessions in the attic. These contain many memories of Coco and Edie’s dad and together they all begin the process of grieving those they have lost and keeping their memories alive.
This book tackles many themes but is also a gripping fantasy adventure. And now I know what kennings are!
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
Age Guide 9+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie Kirtley grew up in Northern Ireland, where she spent her childhood climbing on hay bales, rolling down sand dunes and leaping the raw Atlantic waves. Nowadays she lives in Wiltshire with her husband, three children and their mini-menagerie of pets and wild things. Sophie has always loved stories; she has taught English and has worked in a theatre, a bookshop and a tiny pub where folk tell fairytales by candlelight. Sophie is also a prize-winning published poet and the author of middle-grade novels The Wild Way Home and The Way to Impossible Island.
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