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Jenny sits up on the beacon day after day. She never takes a coat. She rarely wears her shoes. She talks to the ghost who lives there, the ghost she can only see out of the corner of her eye when she concentrates very hard. Sometimes Jenny also talks to the white goat who isn't really a white goat. He's a puca, a creature of Irish myth. The puca seems to understand Jenny very well, which is more than her parents, JJ and Aisling do. When some archaeologists arrive and try to excavate the beacon, the ghost won't let them. The treasure hidden inside it must never be discovered, for if it is, the entire human race will be threatened. The thing is, it's not the archaelogists the ghost is afraid of; he can deal with them easily enough. The real danger, though, he cannot face alone. He's going to need Jenny's help...

I loved Jenny, the strange, dislocated child who prefers talking to ghosts and pucas than to humans. ''The Last of the High Kings'' is about journeys really and Jenny's has the hardest road to tread. She has to learn a great deal about her own identity, but most of all, she has to learn about the value of family and of belonging. The ghost, a - forgive the pun - shadowy figure up on the beacon, is also tremendously sympathetic. His journey is the reverse of Jenny's - he must learn when it's time to let go. Everyone else has a fully-fleshed role to play, in particular the sneaky, deceptive puca, but I thought the juxtaposition of the choices facing Jenny and the ghost were the most striking.