Dylan isn't the happiest teenaged girl in England--her best friend moved away, her relationship with her mother is currently prickly, and she has no great passions or interests in her life. She has, though, just reconnected with her father, who she hasn't seen since she was five, and is going to be going to see him up in Scotland. Fed up with a miserable day at school, she cuts out to take an earlier train than she'd planned on, and in so doing, changes her life (and death).
Inside a tunnel there's a terrible accident. And when Dylan becomes conscious, she's alone in the dark (she can't, mercifully, see what's around her, but there are no other living people....). She makes it out of the train, and walks down the tunnel, hoping to find help, but instead she finds herself in a wasteland. There is one other person--Tristan, a strangely unhelpful and uncommunicative boy her own age. Having no better choice, she follows his lead. As they walk on with no sign of civilization around them, warning bells start going off in her head, and at last she gets the truth out of Tristan--she is dead, and he is the ferryman tasked with taking her to her final destination.
As they journey from safe house to safe house through the wasteland, beset by ghastly beings that long to rip Dylan's soul from her, they both succumb to the irresistible attraction that is growing up between them. It is an attraction that stems more from circumstance than from any deep knowledge of each other, and so as a cynical adult I have to admit I rolled my eyes, but given that Dylan has no strong anchors to her past life, and no information about what's next, and given that Tristan has spent uncounted centuries ferrying the dead with no chance to develop close personal relationships, it's understandable. And so Dylan makes the one choice that she has--to reject what lies beyond, and try, desperately and dangerously, to go back to her old life, and take Tristan with her.
It's a fascinating set-up, and I enjoyed the journey through the wasteland very much. I read it in one afternoon, with enjoyment. And even though I had to not think too hard about the growing love between them, it was sweet, and even though there's not all that much character development, it was easy as a reader to fill that in given the bits given. The ending doesn't resolve everything, but it is satisfying, leaving what comes next to the reader's imagine in a way that that is just fine. That being said, there are two more books in the series...and those who took pleasure in this unusual love will want to seek them out quickly!
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
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Ooh, this sounds really good! I love a road trip story!
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