NOX WINTERS AND THE MIDNIGHT WOLF

After several terrible months apart, Nox Winters and his identical twin brother, Noah, are finally together in Evergreen, Maine, where Noah is receiving treatment for a mysterious illness.

The seventh graders are staying in the unsettling house of their mother’s friends Weston and Aster Day, who are oncologists. Noah, Nox’s charming, easygoing opposite, is getting worse, a setback that’s tied to a spectral wolf who enters through their window at night. Joined by levelheaded, nature-loving Thea, Aster’s daughter, Nox ventures into the local forest seeking answers in the Nightwood, a parallel world of eternal darkness. Hassan’s duology opener is a classic quest story that lies on the border between horror and the fantastic. The Nightwood is populated by creatures from mythology and nightmare: animalistic forest deities, living constellations, and a terrifying yet endearing puppet. The story moves at an assured clip as Nox and Thea use practicality to survive a world they can no longer fully understand. Nox is clever and loyal, but he’s heroic out of necessity rather than inclination. He’s propelled by a temper that’s a genuine struggle for him, making his life and relationships difficult to manage. As the true nature of Noah’s condition and the secrets of the twins’ history unfurl, so do Nox’s first forays into trusting people outside his family and accepting his own flaws and mistakes. The central cast presents white.

An enjoyably strange and wildly inventive journey into the unknown.