The Lost Tide Warriors

On the Irish island of Arranmore, a dark power is awakening. Thousands of terrifying, zombie-like Soulstalkers have arrived on the island, bringing destruction in their wake: a dead whale washes up on the beach, horses are dying of unusual diseases and the dad of Fionn’s friend has not been able to write a decent poem for months.

Fionn Boyle has been the Storm Keeper for less than six months, and he’s worried that his powers - the ability to raise the seas and winds and defeat the evil Morrigan, goddess of death – have been slightly absent so far. In his dreams, Morrigan taunts him that she will rise to power on the winter solstice in just a few days. What can Fionn do to stop her?

Doyle cleverly weaves ideas about memory, causality and reality through the overall story to create a multi-layered narrative; by burning the magic candles, Fionn travels to the past to more fully understand the present. Yet memory and forgetting are inevitably linked: as Fionn journeys to the past, in the present, his grandfather is forgetting more and more.

The second book in the Storm Keeper series is a rich, atmospheric and uniquely modern Irish mythology for children: highly recommended.