Genre: Graphic Novel, Fantasy
Date Published: October 22, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★
LGBTQ+: ✅
📖 Click here to read the synopsis
A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.
Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.
One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.
Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.
This was SO ADORABLE and I loved it. The art style is one of my favourites I’ve seen in a graphic novel in a long time. I read it as an eBook (from my Humble Bundle collection), but the art has made me want to get a physical copy just so I can have something as pretty as this on my shelf.
My favourite thing about the story itself was the effortless and lovely LGBTQ+ representation and inclusion. Nova has two grandmas that she calls the Nanas, and her long-time best friend-turned-love interest Tam asks to be referred to with they pronouns (to which the Nanas respond like “yeah, sure!”). Also, for disability rep, Nova also wears a hearing aid, which is also effortlessly included and she actually has figured out a way to use it to her advantage for her magic.
I loved the setting, and I want to spend hours in the family’s magical bookshop and library. The story was great too, dealing with some important themes of self-discovery while also being wholesome and adorable. In short, I loved everything about this!
