Celine Kiernan has penned a middle/early high school ghost story with lots of spooky atmospherics and some decent characterizations, but not much else. The book fails to deliver on the early promise of its first line, “We were watching the telly the night Nan burnt the house down.” The excitement of the first chapter is seldom reached again, nor is there much exploration of how, or even why, a grandmother suffering from dementia turned arsonist. The fire was a merely a plot device to get the family to move to a haunted house.

Copious descriptions of physicality and moody musings are no substitute for plot development, and many leads that could have been turned into motifs or themes of real interest go cold. What is the theme of this book? It is unpleasant in the zone between death and life; don’t go there. The only readers likely to love this book are avid ghost story fans with a penchant for Irish slang and family cuddles.