Seventeen year old Ivy Jenkins is an assistant at The Wye Valley Butterfly Zoo, she really enjoys her work there, finding it both fascinating and rewarding. She has one thought that she would like an answer to though, that involves a tiny scrap of paper that is squeezed into a locket. A message that was left to her from her mother saying that she was sorry that she couldn't look after her and she couldn't keep her safe because someone was trying to get her. She was not to trust anyone and to be strong.
This has been troubling her for some time and Ivy thinks that she now wants answers. Ivy has never known her mum as she was abandoned at a motorway service station and was named after the cleaning lady who found her. She had been placing posts on missing persons sites asking for any information and now she had a reply from a man who remembered a woman from years ago who looked like Ivy, who left the lighthouse on Bardsey Island in West Wales, to go to the mainland with her baby but then returned alone. This really got Ivy thinking that just perhaps this could have been her mum.
After a few strange episodes which results in Ivy losing her job, she gets her work colleague Tom to drive her across country to hopefully set off for the island. Then after a few scary events they eventually arrive at the harbour and they manage to scrounge a lift over to the island, when they arrive its not the idyllic seaside island that they imagined it would be, but an island steeped in witchcraft and Welsh superstition. What follows is part scary, part superstitious, part magical, part legend and folklore but it certainly doesn't make it easy for Ivy and Tom alone on the island as they have to use all their power and energy to fight evil demons and legend, where you find yourself hurriedly reading along to find out what the outcome will be.
This is a young adult book, but I am well out-of this age bracket and I still enjoyed it, so I would more call it an "all ages" book.
This has been troubling her for some time and Ivy thinks that she now wants answers. Ivy has never known her mum as she was abandoned at a motorway service station and was named after the cleaning lady who found her. She had been placing posts on missing persons sites asking for any information and now she had a reply from a man who remembered a woman from years ago who looked like Ivy, who left the lighthouse on Bardsey Island in West Wales, to go to the mainland with her baby but then returned alone. This really got Ivy thinking that just perhaps this could have been her mum.
After a few strange episodes which results in Ivy losing her job, she gets her work colleague Tom to drive her across country to hopefully set off for the island. Then after a few scary events they eventually arrive at the harbour and they manage to scrounge a lift over to the island, when they arrive its not the idyllic seaside island that they imagined it would be, but an island steeped in witchcraft and Welsh superstition. What follows is part scary, part superstitious, part magical, part legend and folklore but it certainly doesn't make it easy for Ivy and Tom alone on the island as they have to use all their power and energy to fight evil demons and legend, where you find yourself hurriedly reading along to find out what the outcome will be.
This is a young adult book, but I am well out-of this age bracket and I still enjoyed it, so I would more call it an "all ages" book.