An adorable adventure with a thrilling ending: Readers will be excited for the next volume.
A witch and a vampire-turned-cat team up in this compilation of entries from a popular WEBTOON comic series.
Morgana only wants her magic to not be so erratic; it’d be nice to actually get a spell right once in a while. Her family has more ambitious aspirations, however: Her mom wants peace between the witches and a dangerous vampire clan. Their relationship has been tense for some time, but when an attempt at conciliation goes south, the problems escalate. In the chaos, Morgana accidentally transforms one of the vampires, Oz, into a little white, red-eyed cat. Turning him back, when she can’t even manage making tea, might be tough, and Oz’s clan thinks he’s been kidnapped and won’t let this go. Between possible traitors and a brewing war, Morgana must do her best to help Oz so she can help her family. As the stakes rise, vampires start becoming sick with a craving for witches’ blood, thanks to a curse supposedly inflicted on them by Morgana’s family. Morgana doesn’t know what to do, or whom to turn to. Could a mysterious new arrival be an ally? The adorable full-color art in contrasting tones of purples, rich browns, and pastels portrays scenes that are at times laugh-out-loud funny. Morgana is a sweetly naïve protagonist, and the intrigue is engrossing.
An adorable adventure with a thrilling ending: Readers will be excited for the next volume. (Manga. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781998854837
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WEBTOON Unscrolled
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Crowd-pleasing fun laced with political fire: a winner.
Bestselling author Faizal returns to the universe of We Hunt the Flame (2019) with a stand-alone duology opener.
Orphaned Arthie, brown-skinned with mauve hair, has created a criminal empire out of sheer pluck despite being Ceylani in Ettenia, where laws favor white people. She pulled legendary pistol Calibore from a stone plinth (though the prophecy that doing so would make her the nation’s leader turned out to be a hoax). She’s also built Spindrift, a teahouse-cum-bloodhouse, where she gathers secrets from wealthy humans and vampires, amassing power and security. Now Arthie has her sights set on vengeance—and the Ram, Ettenia’s masked monarch. When she and Jin, her brother-by-choice (who’s cued East Asian), are drawn into a heist, they assemble a diverse crew of immigrants whose roles riff on genre archetypes. The lush prose pulses with feeling as revelations are dropped and the tension ratchets up, keeping the pages turning as the motley gang plans to infiltrate a vampire society, retrieve a stolen ledger, and double-cross one of the Ram’s guards (who might be planning to double-cross them). Their ultimate goal: taking down the colonizing Ettenians and the exploitative East Jeevant Company. It’s all very exciting right up to the action-packed finale, which promises more conspiracy and (hopefully) justice to come. This compelling read offers interesting commentary on our society while feeling entirely real within the context of its own worldbuilding.
Crowd-pleasing fun laced with political fire: a winner. (map) (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780374389406
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
PROFILES
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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