Grimoire Noir

by Vera Greentea, Yana Bogatch (Illustrator)

Overview

Beautiful, spooky, and utterly enchanting, Vera Greentea and Yana Bogatch's Grimoire Noir is a charming graphic novel about coming to terms with your own flaws and working past them to protect those dear to you.

Bucky Orson is a bit gloomy, but who isn’t at fifteen?

His best friend left him to hang out with way cooler friends, his dad is the town sheriff, and wait for it—he lives in Blackwell, a town where all the girls are witches. But when his little sister is kidnapped because of her extraordinary power, Bucky has to get out of his own head and go on a strange journey to investigate the small town that gives him so much grief. And in the process he uncovers the town’s painful history and a conspiracy that will change it forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250623379
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	07/23/2019
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	113 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	12 - 16 Years

About the Author

Vera Greentea is best known for her dark fantasy comics, including Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits and Recipes for the Dead. Vera does her best writing when it rains, lives with a klutzy cat who needs a helmet and a husband that doesn't, and owns a growing library that keeps overtaking more rooms. Grimoire Noir is her graphic novel debut novel.

Yana Bogatch is a freelance illustrator/character designer/comic artist. She has a Bachelor's degree in Traditional Animation, and a background in music. She is committed to creating an immersive experience with her illustrations / comics, and let the viewer feel like they are there with the characters.

Vera Greentea is a sucker for witches—seriously, she’d watch or read anything with witches in it, even if it’s terrible. She’s best known for her dark fantasy comics, including Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits and Recipes for the Dead. Vera does her best writing when it rains, lives with a klutzy cat that needs a helmet and a husband that doesn't, and owns a growing library that keeps overtaking more rooms. Grimoire Noir is her debut novel.
Yana Bogatch is a freelance illustrator/character designer/comic artist currently residing in Toronto, Canada. She has a Bachelor's degree in Traditional Animation, and a background in music. She is committed to creating an immersive experience with her illustrations / comics, and her ultimate desire is to let the viewer step through the veil and feel like they are there with the characters.

Editorial Reviews

05/27/2019

Bucky Orson’s sister Heidi is missing, and his mother’s despair has caused torrential rains that are flooding the small, mysterious town of Blackwell. This is not so unusual in Blackwell, where women have Charm, a magickal power, and magick is protected by law. When town politics keep Bucky’s sheriff father from investigating the case, Bucky sets out to find his sister himself, uncovering a web of secrets about a local coven, an imprisoned witch, and an ancient injustice that may change the town forever. Greentea (the Recipes for the Dead series) merges claustrophobic small-town drama with gothic fantasy and noir, though the meandering plot, which has Bucky drift from clue to clue, and the mystery’s underwhelming solution do not quite live up to the setting’s promise. Still, arresting illustrations from artist Bogatch elevate the telling, mixing washed-out, angular figures with thoughtful color accents against heavily textured backgrounds. The result is an unusual, tense, and deeply atmospheric world full of stylish characters and forbidding places (dark woods, decaying manors). Style may have trumped substance here, but the visit to Blackwell is worth it just to see the sights.Ages 12–16. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Grimoire Noir is beautiful. So dark and magical and moving." —Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians

"Featuring a grayscale palette with striking daubs of color, the art is wonderfully atmospheric. Characters are impeccably styled with a keen sartorial eye...brooding gothic fare brimming with style. "—Kirkus

"An unusual, tense, and deeply atmospheric world full of stylish characters and forbidding places." —Publishers Weekly

"Murky scenes in black, gray, and subtle touches of luminous color add to the noir mood, while floating curlicues and dusky shadows give it an unmistakable macabre-fantasy feel." —Booklist

"This would be an interesting step up for fans of Ostertag’s The Witch Boy or a treat for graphic novel readers seeking a dark supernatural mystery." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

2019-04-11
In a magical town, a teen boy seeks his missing sister.

Bucolic Blackwell is unlike most other sleepy burgs: Here, girls are the sole possessors of magick, but enchanted boundaries keep them constrained within its limits. When Bucky, a reedy boy sporting a trench coat and fedora, learns his young sister, Heidi, is missing, he is immediately on the case. With the help of best friend Chamomile (whose magical powers allow her to levitate), they try to piece together the murky details around Heidi's disappearance. Bucky wishes he could do magick, and his jealousy causes friction in his relationship with Cham. As his investigation intensifies, Bucky finds that dark forces abound, including buried family secrets, a bewitched toy, and a wrathful spirit. This graphic offering constructs an intriguing world where women hold the power, although that power has ultimately trapped them. At times, narrative details can feel a bit rushed, however readers are likely to find this a minor quibble. Featuring a grayscale palette with striking daubs of color, the art is wonderfully atmospheric. Characters are impeccably styled with a keen sartorial eye. Many of the female characters have enviably flowing tresses, ranging from swirling otherworldly tendrils to freshly styled locs. Main characters Bucky and Cham present as white and slender, however secondary characters encompass a more diverse spectrum of skin tones and body size.

Brooding gothic fare brimming with style. (Graphic fantasy. 12-adult)

Kirkus Reviews