Creature of the Night

I will also be book talking this title at the SDLA Annual Conference for YARP/SD Teen Choice Book Award High School List.  So this review will also be short.

While sometimes the story seemed unbelievable (and not because there's a faerie/supernatural element in the book), it was very creepy.  Creepy enough to make me regret reading it in the dark.  Thanks Kate Thompson.

Set partially in Dublin but mostly in County Clare, Ireland (on the west coast), the story follows fourteen-year-old Bobby who got in too much trouble with his gang of friends in the city.  Wanting a change, his young mother moves Bobby, his younger brother Dennis, and herself to the country.  But the tiny, run-down cottage they rent comes with baggage - literally and figuratively.  Bobby is desperate to get back to the city and will try any means necessary to do so.  But being 14, jobless, and poor limits his options.  The mysterious and sudden disappearance of the former tenant adds to the tension of the story as Bobby struggles to decide where he belongs and who is really is - a hard-working boy with a bright future or a trouble-maker bound for prison or worse.

And again, since there's already more detailed information about it at the link above and because it'll ruin the book talk, I'm not going to say anything else.