His best-known works include the 2006 ghost novel Breathe, The Silver Sequence, and The Doomspell Trilogy, which has been translated into 26 languages.
[1] The trilogy concerns six children with unusual powers who are battling to prevent a single vast entity from destroying all life on Earth.
In May 2013, Breathe was selected by the UK School Librarians' Network as one of the top 100 adult and children's novels of all time.
The novel incorporates darker themes of teen angst, bullying, and how to behave in the world, and was shortlisted for the North East Teenage fiction Award and the Tayshas Reading List.
Going Home (2014) is a departure from McNish's previous style, a comedy about four dogs stuck in a rescue centre.