Into the Grey

June 1, 2014

Gr 7 Up-Set in Ireland in the early 1970s, this story stars twin brothers Patrick and Dom Finnerty, who have their world turned upside down when their house and all they possess is burned to the ground. Displaced, the family moves into their summer seaside cottage. Now in the middle of winter, the cottage seems dull, bleak, and quite eerie. Suffering from horrible nightmares, the boys' bond of brotherly love is put to the test when they discover that the "goblin-boy" is not just a dream. When Patrick tries to rid them of the ghostly creature, it takes possession of Dom instead. Patrick realizes that in order to save his brother's life he must befriend this ghost and figure out what it wants and why before time runs out. The protagonist's journey of self-discovery uncovers numerous family secrets, forges unlikely allies, and proves that the power of friendship, loyalty, and love are far stronger than he ever imagined. Kiernan's beautiful and haunting novel is full of mystery and suspense with continuous plot twists and turns. The narrative voice is compelling and honest while capturing the emotional terror the teen has to face. The refreshing, multidimensional characters drive the story line and readers will connect with them because of the poignant and touching moments. A captivating read that combines Irish history with the supernatural.-Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2014
Irish fantasist Kiernan (The Poison Throne, 2010, etc.) explores the dynamics of love and loss.In 1974, 15-year-old identical twins Pat and Dom move with their family into a drab summer cottage after their senile grandmother inadvertently burns down their house. Nerves still raw from the disruption of their lives and the loss of their home, the twins start to have strange dreams. Then Pat hears Dom talking in the night and sees a goblin-boy peering down from the bunk above him. The harrowing series of events that follows convinces Pat that he's losing his brother: Dom becomes possessed by a 10-year-old boy stuck in a gray fog that's neither this world nor the next, endlessly searching for his twin, a soldier who died in the trenches of World War I. Pat's narration is marked by vivid descriptions and consistently polished, well-paced prose: "Yesterday morning, I'd had a brother. I'd had a best friend. He'd been fun. He'd been interesting: my slow-burn, articulate counterweight. Now I was lopsided, a boat with one paddle, rowing frantically and spinning in a slow, maddening circle around the space that should have been him." The otherworldly goings-on are grounded in the family lives of the village their Nan grew up in, adding intriguing nuances to the psychological drama.A gripping, highly original ghost story. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2014
Grades 8-11 When 15-year-old twins Dominick and Patrick lose their home to a fire, their family moves to the seaside cottage where they usually spend their summers. Everything seems run of the mill, until the twins start having vivid dreams about a bad man coming to take them, and when they wake they're filled with a ravenous, mindless hunger. Soon the dreams start bleeding into reality, and Pat sees an ominous WWI soldier lurking in the shadows. Then he wakes to a terrifying goblinlike creature talking to his brother in the night. When Dom becomes possessed by a ghost and his body turns dangerously ice-cold, no one in their loving family save Pat seems to notice, so he takes it upon himself to dig up clues about the ghost in the hopes that he can rescue his twin. Dom and Pat share a deeply loving bond, which makes Pat's panic over Dom's transformation palpable. In stark, eerie passages, Kiernan tells a gripping story as much about the love between brothers as it is about ghosts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2014
When their home burns down, twin teens Patrick and Dominick move with their family to the shabby seaside cottage where they usually spend summer holidays. Almost at once, Pat sees that Dom is being haunted by the ghost of a young boy, while Pat himself is visited by nightmares of a soldier drowning in the muddy trenches of World War I. Eventually Dom is utterly possessed by Francis, the ghost of a boy who died of diphtheria decades ago, and Pat is desperate to do what he can to retrieve his brother. Family and local history come together as the twisting plot makes its way toward resolution: another pair of twin brothers, a senile grandmother, Irish lads turned British soldiers, and a series of surreal dreams and psychic landscapes all fall into place. Sometimes Kiernan's storytelling is fraught and overdrawn; at its best it is confident, pungent, and poetic. Family love, loyalty, and protectiveness are palpable in a well-drawn cast of characters, and the pace is frequently galvanized with energetic drama and dialogue pierced with Irish dialect. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2015
Twin teens Patrick and Dominick move with their family to a shabby seaside cottage. There Pat sees that Dom is being haunted by the ghost of a young boy, while Pat himself is visited by nightmares about a WWI soldier. Family love, loyalty, and protectiveness are palpable in a well-drawn cast of characters. The pace is galvanized with energetic drama and evocative Irish dialect.

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)