An accomplished work that explores the horror of being young and cursed.
A demonic inheritance haunts a group of siblings in writer Bunn and artist Bocardo’s graphic novel of gothic horror, teenage angst, and family secrets.
As the story opens, Jamison Kreel lies dead in a creepy funeral home in Boston, surrounded by his seven children from seven different mothers. Drawn together for the first time ever, the half siblings discover that they’re the product of a hellish pact: Jamison made a literal deal with the devil, and, in return, each of his kids inherited infernal powers and a soul-crushing curse. Argyle, Jerold, Dominic, Madison, Romy, Britton, and Luna begin to unravel their father’s sinister legacy as each is haunted by grotesque manifestations tied to their pasts. Jerold is murdered by a demon and, one by one, the other siblings receive cursed packages containing pieces of his body, which then transform their mothers and loved ones into monstrous embodiments of guilt, despair, and regret. United by Britton’s control over her demon, the siblings converge at a Chinatown restaurant and uncover the twisted origins of their existence. A quest later takes them from Boston (via Freiburg airport) to a castle in the Black Forest. Demons, ghosts, and living nightmares close in as they seek answers, vengeance, and possibly redemption; in the end, the “Spawn of Kreel” learn they’re not alone. Over the course of this tale, Bunn and Bocardo deliver a satisfyingly blood-soaked depiction of the myriad dramas of young personhood. Driven by rich, lively, full-color illustrations, the writing is also fresh and realistic, avoiding the trap of inauthentic Gen Z–speak. Classic themes, such as absent parents, growing pains, questions of identity, and general angst come alive (or fall dead) in ways that are sometimes brutal—wrist cutting, cannibalism—and other times slightly camp, involving demons apparently inspired variously by seafood, Gremlins, vagina dentata, 1950s horror tropes, and manga.
An accomplished work that explores the horror of being young and cursed.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781545817933
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.
Hill, son of the master, turns in a near-perfect homage to Stephen King.
Arthur Oakes has problems. One is that his mom, a social justice warrior, has landed in the slammer for unintentional manslaughter. And he’s one of just three Black kids at an expensive college (in Maine, of course), an easy target. A local townie drug dealer extorts him into stealing rare books from the school’s library, including one bound in human skin. The unwilling donor of said skin turns up, and so do various sinister people, one reminiscent of Tolkien’s Gollum, another a hick who lives—well, sort of—to kill. Then there’s Colin Wren, whose grandfather collects things occult. As will happen, an excursion into that arcana conjures up the title character, a very evil dragon, who strikes an agreement with fine print requiring Arthur and his circle to provide him with a sacrifice every Easter. “It’s a bad idea to make a deal with them,” says Arthur, belatedly. “Language is one of their weapons…as much as the fire they breathe or the tail that can knock down a house.” King Sorrow roasts his first victims, and the years roll by, with Arthur becoming a medieval scholar (fittingly enough, with a critical scene set at King Arthur’s fortress at Tintagel), Colin a tech billionaire with Muskian undertones (“King Sorrow was a dragon, but Colin was some sort of dark sorcerer”), and others of their circle suffering from either messing with dragons or living in an America of despair. There’s never a dull moment, and though Hill’s yarn is very long, it’s full of twists and turns and, beg pardon, Easter eggs pointing to Kingly takes on politics, literature, and internet trolls (a meta MAGA remark comes from an online review of Arthur’s book on dragons: “i was up for a good book about finding magical sords and stabbing dragons and rescuing hot babes in chainmail panties but instead i got a lot of WOKE nonsense.…and UGH it just goes on and on, couldve been hundreds of pages shorter”).
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780062200600
Page Count: 896
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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