Eoin Colfer, author of Artemis Fowl, and Steve McCarthy, author and illustrator of the award-winning The Wilderness, join forces to turn a familiar myth of Irish folklore into a truly powerful, unforgettable and universal story of love, perseverance and friendship against all odds. Banshees are supernatural Irish harbingers of doom, but … where do they come from? The answer: they grow in pods on the prickly gorse bush. The sole job of a baby banshee, a "bansheenie" as they are called, is to bond with a human.

Once bonded, they know everything about that person. Most importantly, when they will die. Our bansheenie, named Beanie, is no ordinary herald of death.

When she sees her person, a little girl called Rose, she decides to change her own – and Rose’s – fate and instead of delivering bad news, Beanie wants to protect Rose and her family. When her banshee's howl of doom won't work, she must draw power and strength from the ancient secrets and hidden networks of the natural world around her. She must create a brand new sound, a new way of being in the world that will change everything.