School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up--Teenager Ryn has been caring for her siblings via her steadily dwindling work as a gravedigger in their remote village. Though more villagers are turning to cremation than burial, the teen's work isn't getting any easier: the dead just won't stay dead. According to legend, a fae curse stirs the corpses, or "bone houses," that emerge from the nearby forest each night, and Ryn often enters the forest alone to stop the dead from reaching the village. On one of her outings, she finds Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker living with chronic pain. But with his arrival comes an attack more vicious than any before. Desperate to end the curse, the two teens travel through the forest to the mountains that once served as the home of the fae. With little backstory and only limited mention of communities outside of Ryn's village, the book focuses on the teens and their mission. Both characters are fully realized, each beginning with a singular goal but ultimately learning that love and loss are their own journeys. Lloyd-Jones turns Ryn's familiar fantasy quest through the woods into a new and magical journey, filled with the best parts of a fairy tale. Monsters, curses, love--both slow-burn and familial--beautiful descriptions of an eerie mythical Welsh setting, and a streak of humor make this stand-alone novel a must-read. VERDICT This fresh take on the undead is recommended for YA collections.--Maggie Mason Smith, Clemson University, SC
Publisher's Weekly Review
With her mother dead and her father missing, Aderyn, 17, has become a gravedigger for the town of Colbren, which borders on a forest where the dead walk at night. When Ellis, 18, arrives in Colbren seeking to map the nearby mountains, Aderyn takes a job as his guide to help repay urgent family debts. Then the dead attack the town, and Aderyn and Ellis head into the forest accompanied by an undead goat in hopes of finding Annwvyn, once home to the legendary Otherking, and thereby ending the threat of the dead at its source--"the cauldron of rebirth." Lloyd-Jones (The Hearts We Sold) creates an evocative world of magic and haunted forests rooted in Welsh folklore. Although some plot twists are overtly telegraphed, she skillfully builds tension and plays with the conventions of fairy tales and horror, adeptly leading to a rewarding conclusion. The appealing main characters are notable for their persistence--Aderyn through ever-mounting obstacles, and Ellis through his chronic pain. The story serves as a meditation on the complicated relationship between the living and the dead, combining fear, humor and enchantment in equal measure, and alloying them with humor. Ages 12--up. (Sept.)
Kirkus Review
Ever since the dead have started coming back to life, gravedigger Ryn has been out of work.Desperate to protect her younger siblings and clear her family's debts to a greedy landlord, Ryn connects with Ellis, a lost mapmaker who will pay her to guide him into the mountains. Raised in Caer Aberhen after being found in the woods by a prince, Ellis now searches for any trace of his parents, though chronic shoulder pain from a mysterious injury slows him down. Through a forbidden forest teeming with monsters, together they look for a mythical cauldron that will end the curse of the risen dead. Lloyd-Jones (The Hearts We Sold, 2017, etc.) gruesomely describes the undead, called bone houses, with their rotting flesh and unseeing eye socketsyet the mood never gets too dark thanks to a tenacious and strangely adorable undead goat along with some mild romantic tension. The journey is slow to get started, the numerous attacks and fight scenes with bone houses grow tedious, and the twists are predictable, but nonetheless this Welsh-inspired story is haunting and compelling. Apart from a dark-skinned villager depicted as an outsider, all characters are presumed white. A stand-alone dark fantasy that readers will want to sink their teeth into despite its flaws. (Fantasy. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Ryn, 17, is more comfortable with the dead than most. She's the gravedigger for the tiny mountainside village where she and her two siblings, long orphaned, eke out a living as times grow ever harder. It's because of her proximity to death that Ryn is one of the few villagers who believes in the old legends of the bone houses corpses who rise at dusk in the nearby forest, given life by an old curse. In fact, she more than believes it: she's seen and fought the bone houses herself. When a mapmaker named Ellis, haunted by his own elusive past, appears in her village determined to map the mountain, the dead rise at an alarming rate, and Ryn joins him on a quest that sends them both into a dangerous world filled with ancient magic. With ghostly prose, Lloyd-Jones (The Hearts We Sold, 2017) follows Ryn and Ellis' journey while periodically dipping into the local lore that explains how their world has become what it is. While characterization is strong and Ryn and Ellis' trek through the mountains is filled with breathless moments and occasional humor (the latter due mostly to an undead goat), this is, in its strongest moments, a fable about death and the ways in which we live alongside it. This melancholic horror novel digs its way into the heart.--Maggie Reagan Copyright 2010 Booklist
