Spirit's father reads people's future by holding their house key. This is how he earns his living. They live on a small island, where the populace is particularly afraid of the wild native dogs - baldies - that live in the woods. Spirit however, made one into a pet. Her good dog, Sky, died before the book begins, but soon she is seeing his ghost. And then the ghosts of other dead baldies.
The dog ghosts seem to be trying to tell Spirit something, and she aims to find out what it is.
With a little help from a neighbor boy, Nector, who may have a slight crush on her, Spirit begins to unravel the mystery of the island, it's dogs, and the mysterious deaths of those dogs. ( )

Spirit's father has the family gift: when he holds someone's house key, he can tell them what might happen in their future. But lately he's been having more and more trouble getting good readings. Spirit, meanwhile, is preoccupied in her own grief: her dog Sky died mysteriously, and since he was one of the island's despised wild dogs that Spirit had domesticated, she gets little sympathy from the locals. When other wild dogs start dying, Spirit begins to suspect that someone is killing them -- but when a few village residents become ill, the local prejudice threatens to overwhelm the situation. Spirit, with the help of a new human friend and the ghost of her beloved dog, must find some way to save the wild dogs and the island's residents from impending disaster -- all while coping with her own budding paranormal gift.

There's a lot going on in this story, but it all comes together well. I didn't feel like the mystery element was particularly strong, but then again, the story is trying to do more than just be a mystery, what with the paranormal elements and the dogs and all. I found it a little lacking, but I may just not have been in the mood for this kind of story. ( )

Spirit's story pulled me right in! Give me a character who has the ability to read the future is enough to sell the book for me. Having lived on an island I really enjoyed the setting and the references to being from away. All the quirky characters were rich layers for the plot my favorites were the Hatterasks family whose house gets washed away with every hurricane ( )