Children's books review: Things that go bump in the night on an opulent cruise liner

Pet O’Connell rounds up a fresh selection of children’s books, including Amy Clarkin’s third Paranormal Surveyance Ireland novel, a WB Yeats illustrated poem, and a hilarious Halloween tale

Amy Clarkin: A ghost story with plenty of bite, ‘Where the Shadows Hide’s paranormal plotline is sufficiently strong to prevent it being submerged under the weight of emotions, including trust and betrayal, examined via its young adult protagonists. Picture: City Headshots

Where the Shadows Hide by Amy Clarkin (O’Brien Press, €12.99)

Everything about the cruise ship L’Imperiale speaks of opulence. 

Crowning its five passenger decks, spa, and beauty salon are an observatory, pool, and star-gazing platform, catering for its wealthy customers’ every indulgence. 

Even its corridor walls shimmer with gold-embossed detailing.

The ship’s guests dine on the finest food, with service of the highest standard, even if their wealth feeds a sense of entitlement which sees some treat the staff without respect.

Behind the luxury lurks a dark presence, however. 

Guests have reported feeling cold in areas of the ship; lights have been flickering, and a passenger has sighted a strange, silent figure looming from the darkness at the end of a corridor.

With each cruise it is becoming harder to recruit crew, and Paranormal Surveyance Ireland (PSI) has now been called on board to investigate.

The young PSI team has seven days — the duration of the current cruise — in which to record interviews, readings of electromagnetic fields, and electronic voice phenomena; use infrared cameras, clairvoyancy, and psychometry in a bid to ascertain the cause of the unexplained occurrences.

Within hours of their arrival, things start going bump in the night, with an unsuspecting passenger being pushed to the ground by an invisible force.

Archer O’Sullivan, who restarted the paranormal detection business formerly run by his parents, is joined on the team by his parapsychologist sister Raven, his clairvoyant girlfriend Éabha, her health badly damaged by near-death experiences during previous PSI assignments; and their friends the affable Fionn and scientifically-logical Davis.

Interviews with crew members reveal that a tragedy had previously occurred on the ship, and it looks as if the PSI team might be facing the relatively simple task of communicating with the dead person’s restless spirit.

It is Raven who has their first close encounter with a ghostly presence, becoming certain she is being watched as she walks down one of the ship’s corridors.

“The lights began to flicker. The two furthest away from her, on either side at the far end of the corridor, went first. They both flickered briefly in unison before extinguishing.

“Then the next pair followed suit. And the next. And the next… Advancing towards her. Slowly plunging her into darkness.

“The last thing she saw before she was engulfed in darkness was the cloud of her breath in the now-icy air.”

As a creepy setting this is unusual but as chilling and cinematic as they come.

Exacerbating the sense of vulnerability of being afloat hundreds of miles out at sea is the enclosed, claustrophobic nature of a ship’s corridor, lines of locked doors leaving nowhere to run or hide.

Raven is undaunted, however, and when the ghost first speaks, it appears to confirm that the PSI team’s initial line of inquiry about the restless spirit is correct.

What transpires at the séance that follows, however, leads to the realisation that this gentle ghost is in fact the least of the PSI team’s worries.

If the paranormal elements of Dublin author Amy Clarkin’s third PSI novel are multilayered, they have nothing on the complex, ever-fluctuating relationships between its diverse cast of characters.

A ghost story with plenty of bite, its paranormal plotline is sufficiently strong to prevent it being submerged under the weight of emotions, including trust and betrayal, examined via its young adult protagonists.

Éabha’s fatigue may be due to a previous encounter with a homicidal ghost, but it allows for a deep dive into attitudes to chronic illness, while the characters’ diverse range of sexuality and asexuality explored here will allow many young readers to feel truly ‘seen’.

The Stolen Child by WB Yeats, illustrated by Erin Brown (O’Brien Press, €19.99)

Faeries, not the pretty pink fluttery type that appear in Disney films, but the Sídhe of Irish folklore, are as sinister as any creature one might encounter at Samhain, when the line between the human world and underworld is thin enough to be crossed.

They might be capable of bringing good luck but would also curse anyone who interferes with their faery trees, curdle milk, or cause butter-making to fail. 

Far more disturbing, though, is their penchant for stealing children.

One of the best-loved WB Yeats poems, not least due to its musical interpretation by The Waterboys and others, The Stolen Child encompasses both lyrical romanticisation of the faery folk and a warning of the dangers of being lured away by them, never to return.

The landscape of Leitrim and Sligo, “where the wave of moonlight glosses the dim grey sands with light, far off by furthest Rosses” also becomes part of the mystical attraction.

Now, Northern Irish illustrator Erin Brown’s new picture book sets these lines fittingly against the striking backdrop of Benbulben, while using swirling shades of blue and green as the “wandering water gushes from the hills above Glen-Car, in pools among the rushes that scarce could bathe a star”.

The latter aquatic scene, also used as the book’s cover, portrays the human child carried on currents with trout, frogs, and foaming white horses and is its standout image, capturing the sense of freedom promised in the waters and the wild.

Each reader’s individual interpretation of Yeats’ poem will colour their reaction to the cheerful smiles and cute button noses of Brown’s faery folk, who are undeniably Good People, and not the sort of child-snatchers who would enchant a boy, rendering him “solemn-eyed” and lead him, Brothers-Grimm style, away from home.

Whether maleficent incantation or playful invitation, the poem’s refrain “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand”, is certainly alluring, and lends itself perfectly to picture-book form for repeated reading aloud.

Fright Club: Let’s Boo This! by Sibéal Pounder (Puffin, €13.05)

Joe’s gran has just died, and when he and his friends see a cloaked figure drifting through the house, they suspect it was connected with her demise.

As they pursue ‘Cloakman’, he drops a small wooden box, which on later examination is found to contain… a severed finger.

For context, Joe & Co live in a town called Grim, which is built around a graveyard, and the moving finger proves a very useful ally as they uncover Joe’s gran’s secret. 

She was a member of the Fright Club, a society of supernatural investigators, and in a bid to solve the mystery of his gran’s death, Joe convinces his friends to revive the club, with spook-tacular results.

Witch Wars author Sibéal Pounder’s new series allows readers to choose which character to follow, but unbeknownst to Joe, each of his friends is hiding a supernatural secret of their own.

Friendship, frights, and Halloween hilarity for readers aged eight-plus.