The Storm Keeper's Island

For centuries, Arranmore Island has bestowed the power to wield the elements on a chosen Storm Keeper, who uses those abilities to protect the island and its magic. Eleven-year-old Fionn Boyle travels to Arranmore to spend the summer with his grandfather Malachy, who, unbeknownst to him, is the current Storm Keeper. Upon Fionn's arrival at his ancestral home, Arranmore awakens: flowers disappear then resprout, and tides keep their own rhythm. The time has come for the island to choose a new keeper. But an ancient darkness lurks beneath the island's surface--will Fionn work up the nerve to face his destiny and prevent evil from rising again?

In her middle-grade debut, Catherine Doyle (Blood for Blood YA series) brings to magical life an actual island off the northwest coast of Ireland. Arranmore is a land "full of secrets" and "impossibility," capable of "shifting and stretching and blinking"; when Fionn steps on Arranmore for the first time, he has "the most absurd sensation that the island [is] opening its arms and enveloping him." Doyle's vivid imagery and colorful language ("the sun was sitting in the sky like a plump orange") engages the senses as she weaves together an atmospheric setting.

To ground the fantasy in this "perfect summer adventure," Doyle also focuses on real-world concerns like Alzheimer's and depression. Both are well represented, integral parts of the narrative that add realism to the myth-based story. The Storm Keeper's Island is a beautiful blend of Irish legend and self-discovery. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

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