Ghost Girl by Patti M Walsh

Ghost Girl by Patti M Walsh

Best Children's Fiction, American Book Fest, 2023

Second Place, Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Awards, 2023

What if an alienated 12-year-old girl could reinvent her family and then lead it into the future?

In this contemporary novel infused with magical realism, ghosts, and Celtic mythology, the biracial Bonnie is lonely, angry, and confused. Her mother died, her father remarried, and her new school was a disaster. She is sent to live with relatives, who will homeschool her in a haunted house.

There, ancestral ghosts befriend her and guide her on a mystical voyage to the Celtic Otherworld. In that quest, Bonnie must overcome grudges, bullies, and an evil shopkeeper.

Lured at midnight into the forbidden attic by a spirit dog and touched with a magic potion, she seeks answers to who she is, where she belongs, and why her mother died. Will she accept the challenges presented by her new role in the family, or return to her life as a loser?

Young readers will find Ghost Girl a relevant and positive guide for their own lives. Older readers will find Ghost Girl an attractive introduction to the deep and profound mysteries and spiritual precepts of the Irish Celtic tradition.

Dr. George Cinclair Gibson (Ph.D.), Author, Wake Rites: The Ancient Irish Rituals of Finnegans Wake