The first book was excellent. This one was just okay. ( )

Satisfyingly open ending. ( )

The Call finished on a high note—Nessa and Anto had survived! But the Invasion immediately throws their dreams into nightmares, as Sidhe begin to invade their world—an Ireland isolated by a curious barrier somewhere at sea. Traitors are sent out in boats and never return. Warriors are sent out to destroy all things not of this earth. And plans are made, on both sides of the war.

Legends, well-known and little-known, play their part in The Invasion just as they did in The Call. Fate throws characters apart and together, creating and mending betrayals. And the path to saving the world seems ever more fraught as the story progresses.

I liked The Call for its very personal, scary horrors and the mystery of where it might take me. In The Invasion, the horror is written much larger, the threat is clear, and the separate paths of the battle seem to draw ever apart. But the author pulls it all together again, bringing personal needs and loyalties to the fore, and drawing it all to a satisfying conclusion. I hope there might be a third book in this series, though it’s as complete after two books as it surely was after one. I certainly enjoyed it.

Disclosure: My husband got the Call for Christmas and we loved it. I recommend readers start there, then move on to this. ( )

I really liked the premise of this book. Ireland has been cut off from the outside world for a generation, a generation where every child is called by the Sidhe to the Grey Land during their teen years. At first, only three in a thousand survived, but now kids are enrolled in survival colleges to enable them to last the twenty-four hours you need to last to return to the real world. This book mostly follows two kids who survived such an ordeal in the previous book. I liked the sense of a changed world, but got bored by the actual story told, and neither of the main characters ever grabbed me (though I admit that may have been different if I'd read the first book). Plus, the ending wrapped a lot of stuff up out of basically nowhere, though it does seemingly leave room for a book 3.

Oh man, Peadar (and I have to admit I know him here) points out that the ordinary humans can be just as bad as the sidhe. Nessa and Anto have returned from the grey lands to Ireland and are changed and Nessa is suspected of being a traitor while Anto is brought into a squad to fight the Sidhe. Nessa finds herself back in the Grey Lands and has to survive while Anto has to deal with the power he has and what to do with it.

It all concludes in a relatively satisfying way but it's a complicated story and the ending felt a little rushed to me but overall it was a good read and while it feels like a conclusion it left room for sequels.

Received as part of the Hugo award ballot. ( )