A gorgeously written tale of magic, friendship, and self-discovery set in a dream-like landscape filled with fairies.
After years of living in America, Clare Macleod and her father are returning to Ireland, where they’ll inhabit the house Clare was born in—a house built into a green hillside with a tree for a wall. For Clare, the house is not only full of memories of her mother, but also of a mysterious boy with raven-dark hair and dreamlike nights filled with stars and magic. Clare soon discovers that the boy is as real as the fairy-making magic, and that they’re both in great danger from an ancient foe.
Fast-paced adventure and spellbinding prose combine to weave a tale of love and loyalty in this young adult fantasy.
"A stunningly atmospheric, gorgeously complicated dream of a book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"An unforgettable tale . . . that contains all the darkness and light of A Midsummer Night's Dream." —School Library Journal, starred review
Goodreads Summary
My favorite part of this novel was the descriptions of the Irish countryside and the author's devotion to Clare's character. The reader will meet Clare as she is preparing to move back to Ireland with her father. She's a completely different person at the end of the novel. She's intelligent, inquisitive, and a little wily. Her character grew a lot throughout the novel as did the secondary characters. I really enjoyed her discovery of the fae world and all that it implied-both dangerous and fascinating. The more Clare becomes acquainted with the fae the deeper in danger she slides.
The author has a way of writing that will make it very difficult for the reader (as it did me!) to put down the book. I felt like the author's way with words and subtle complexities fit a novel about fairies and mystery perfectly. Finn, the dark haired boy, was both a surprise and forwarded the plot via his relationship to Clare. I liked how the author focused on the secondary characters as well as Clare's character. Overall, this book is recommended to young adult/teen readers.
4 Stars
Character playlist
In The Radiant Road, a girl named Clare, whose mother
died when she was young, returns to Ireland and the house where she was born: a
stone house hidden under a green hill, with a tree growing inside it. Inside
the tree she finds a connection to a world she’d known as a child and forgotten
all about; she finds a boy named Finn; and she finds great danger, to both his
world and our own.
Some of these songs might seem a little ancient for a 15
year-old, but when she lived in America she spent a lot of time—too much time,
frankly—trolling YouTube for interesting tunes.
1. “Painting by Chagall,” The Weepies. “We float like
two lovers in a painting by Chagall” —no spoilers, but that’s very Clare and
Finn in more ways than one. Also, though: “Everybody says you can’t you can’t
you can’t, don’t try! but everybody says that if they had the chance, they’d
fly, like we do.” Trying even when she might fail, when she’s most afraid to
fail, is Clare’s story.
2. “Maybe in Another Year,” Jennie Pearl. An eerily
pretty song from a 15 year-old girl in 1970. Teenagers who make or invent and
put it out there are Clare’s soulmates—even ones like Jennie, who never make
another song.
3. “Dark of the Matinee,” Franz Ferdinand. This might
seem too fierce for dreamy Clare, but I don’t think so. This is just the sort
of boy she’d like, and in some ways is just the sort of boy she finds.
4. “Heather Says,” by the Cowsills: Clare has had
plenty of experience with nasty Heathers in her various schools. Also this is a
great, weird song, and Clare values the weird.
5. “White Teeth Teens,” Lorde. See “Heather
Says,” but five or six years later, and more bitterly serious. Invisible Clare
would deeply appreciate this critique of those who enjoy high school a little
more than they should.
6. “The Stolen Child,” The Waterboys. Clare has
passionate distaste for the word “fairies,” but she does love the bits of Yeats
she’s read in her late mother’s commonplace book. So she might like this lovely
setting of one those poems: “Come away, human child, to the water and the
wild.”
7. “Ending Song” by Keren Ann. “Sunny day—no
one’s here. In the morning rain, there’s no clouds, and I hear, ‘Follow me . .
. follow me . . .’” This is basically the story of someone experiencing a Strange—what
Clare’s mother called a fairy-making—so it would be right
up Clare’s alley.
8. “Starálfur,” by Sigur Rós — like most Sigur Rós
songs, this has a Strange energy that Clare can relate to. You know Iceland
must be littered with the makings of the Strange.
9. “Laughter Lines,” Bastille. “I'll see you in the
future when we're older/And we are full of stories to be told . . .” I mean
Clare just has this one on repeat, sometimes, and you know who she’s thinking
of. So good.
10. “Sprout & the Bean,” Joanna Newsom: “Dreaming
seamless dreams of lead”—honestly this whole song is a bit of a Strange—could
Newsom be from Timeless? And she was only just out of her teens when she
recorded this album.
11. “The Body of an American,” The Pogues. Surely
Clare, poking around in closets, found one of her mother’s old Pogues CDs and
fell for it hard, like any sane person? This song’s a good one for Clare,
because it’s about an Irish American who returns home ( . . . to die, but let’s
leave that aside).
12. “I’m On My Way,” The Proclaimers. Clare knows
this not from Shrek—please—but from her Scottish father’s teenage copy
of the The Proclaimers’ second album, which has a place of honor in his CD
rack. Clare and her Dad sing this while they do the dishes, and if it makes him
sad, remembering his dead wife, Clare sings in her thickest, most awful
Scottish accent to cheer him up.
13. “Carrickfergus,” Van Morrison. Beautiful
rendition of an Irish folk song of loss and grief. Clare listens to it when she
needs to cry.
14. “You Were Cool,” The Mountain Goats. Clare
would like everyone to know she already liked The Mountain Goats before John
Green started talking about them. This song reminds her of someone she knew in
school in Texas. That is all.
15. “The Parting Glass,” The Clancy Brothers. An old
song but lovely, which her mother used to sing. Clare thought of this song when
she left Finn and his people to go off to meet her beast.
Posts
That cover is very pretty, yet it freaks me out a little. I can't wait to read it. Great review and playlist!