After a deadly train crash, the afterlife is waiting for Dylan. But that’s only if she and her intriguing Ferryman can make it across the demon-infested wasteland—and if she can bear to let him go. When Dylan wakes up after her train has crashed, she thinks she has survived unscathed. But she couldn’t be more mistaken: the bleak landscape around her isn't Scotland, it’s a wasteland—a terrain somehow shaped by her own feelings and fears, a border to whatever awaits her in the afterlife. And the stranger sitting by the train track isn't an ordinary teenage boy. Tristan is a Ferryman, tasked with guiding Dylan’s soul safely across the treacherous landscape, a journey he has made a thousand times before. Only this time, something's different. The crossing, as ever, is perilous, with ravenous wraiths hounding the two at each day’s end, hungry for Dylan’s soul. But as Dylan focuses her strength on survival, with Tristan as protector, challenger, and confidant, she begins to wonder where she is truly meant to be—and what she must risk to get there. An international bestseller with a phenomenal following, the award-winning
Ferryman (with its sequels
Trespassers and
Outcasts) is in development to be a major motion picture.
On sale: October 4, 2022
Age: 12 and up
Grade: Grade 7 & Up
Page count: 336 Pages
ISBN: 9781536228212
Reading level: Lexile: HL740L
Claire McFall is a former English teacher whose first book,
Ferryman,
won the Scottish Children's Book Award and was long-listed for both the Branford Boase Award and the Carnegie Medal. She is also the author of
Black Cairn Point (published in the US as
The Last Witness),
which won the inaugural Scottish Teenage Book Prize. Claire McFall is from Scotland and now lives in Colorado.
Is it possible for the dead to love another? Is it possible for the ferryman to love someone? Is it possible for the dead to return to this world? McFall answers all of these questions in thoughtful, satisfying ways for the reader. . . . A highly recommend novel for teen readers.
—School Library Connection (starred review)
What happens after we die? This atmospheric, romantic Scottish fantasy offers an intriguing answer. . . . Adding touches of mystery and horror as she goes, McFall reimagines Charon of Greek mythology in this gentle, engrossing love story.
—Booklist
McFall’s depiction of the protagonists’ hunger to be loved, Dylan’s awkward self-consciousness about her body, and her burgeoning attraction to Tristan is meticulous, excruciating, and believable. . . . An escapist romance of limitless love across boundaries of life and death.
—School Library Journal
An otherworldly romance.
—Kirkus Reviews
’Ferryman’ gives readers ages 12-16 plenty to go on while they wait for the sequels.
—The Wall Street Journal
