The Nightkeeper's Apprentice

This striking debut and winner of the Kelpies Prize is an enthralling mix of history, myth and fantasy .12-year-old Eilidh hails from Glasgow where she lives with her mum during World War II.  Her father is a merchant seaman missing in action. The book opens with a terrifyingly real depiction of what it was like on the night that Clydebank was bombed flat. Eilidh and her mother have a narrow escape, which leads to her evacuation to a remote Scottish island that she has never visited before, to stay with family she had never met. Grim weather and a sullen boy are all that greet her on arrival.  When she meets her Aunt Rhona, she explains there are just two rules Eilidh must follow on the mysterious Mirk Skerry. Never touch anything that washes up on the beach and never enter the lighthouse where Aunt Rhona spends most of her time. The wild beauty of the place and the knowledge that her dad grew up here soon begin to weave their magic upon her, but Magnus does not get any friendlier. Then one night, in a terrible storm, she sees a ship in difficulties and believing her aunt could help, she enters the lighthouse only to accidentally break the mirror, which then stops the light. But her aunt reveals the light has a very different purpose, which is to guide those drowned at sea into the lamp and onwards. Rhona is the current Nightkeeper, a role that has been passed down through the generations. Nightkeepers are always women which explains why Marcus is so resentful of her. Eilidh could inherit the role he longs for. While Rhona goes to the mainland to repair the mirror, Eilidh discovers Cam, a ghost left behind from the wreck and Magnus involves her in his search for the Horn of Ran, which he believes will call back the dead to life again, including their fathers and Cam, and she learns about the underwater Finfolk and the role they play in shipwrecks. Not only is this search perilous, they also do not realise what harm they could do with the Horn; the soulstorm they generate could end the world. This is a vivid and cleverly constructed mythology, and we are completely absorbed by the nail-biting tension of Magnus, Eilidh and Cam’s quest and moved by the emotional journey they go on, as the book moves to its dramatic and credible climax.  An unusual and atmospheric mystery, which examines themes of loss, grief and self-belief.