He is known by many names, including Grimnir, the Gallows God, the All-Father, and Chooser of the Slain. His thirst for knowledge led him through the mystic realms of Norse cosmology. Donning his signature cloak, hat, and walking staff, he is the Traveler. He is regarded as the one-eyed god of Asgard, chief ruler of the Aesir. As a companion to the Olympians series, New York Times bestselling graphic novelist and mythology enthusiast George O’Connor turns the spotlight onto the Norse pantheon beginning with Odin, highest and eldest of them all. The opening scene launches on a war-torn battlefi ..read more

I really enjoy a book that finds a way to surprise the reader by making small changes to our standard expectations. I was delighted by the turns this story took and the way it managed to confound expectations early on. This was fun, intriguing, and quick to read. Ryudo Konosuke is a samurai down on his luck and struggling to get by. He goes to the unemployment office and we learn everyone thinks he’s simply afraid of blades and he’s a local joke. At his lowest and ready to give up, he allows some locals who are picking on him to start a fight. He believes they will give him the honorable death ..read more

Jane has always been told she is plain—at best. She was lonely and sad even before her parents suddenly passed away. Now, due to a quirk of inheritance law, her nasty cousin will get everything, leaving teenaged Jane homeless and alone. That is, unless she can get married within a week. She may not have looks, but if Jane marries, she and her husband get to keep her family’s mansion and money. Jane figures that might just be enough for Peter, a local boy desperate to escape his cruel father and unpleasant job on the docks. Peter agrees to the match . . . but then is kidnapped by a mermaid, who ..read more

“When you asked if you were bipolar, she was looking for a wolf, so she wasn’t going to find a fox.” In her graphic memoir, A Fox in My Brain, Lou Lubie explores her experience with and diagnosis of cyclothymia bipolar disorder. After a depressive episode in high school, Lubie experienced drastic and confusing shifts in mood and energy. Therapists and others in her life often dismissed her concerns about her depression, saying that she was too young to be really depressed and that it will pass on its own. It was years before therapists took her concerns seriously, and she was able to find trea ..read more

I was delighted when Maxwell Eaton III introduced a new character, Survival Scout, to his oeuvre in Lost in the Mountains, and the second book in the series does not disappoint. Scout, having survived her trip to the mountains and gained a skunk friend, is hanging out on a small island off the coast of Alaska with her mom, an ornithologist. She’s woken by a sudden shock and the next thing they know, there’s an earthquake! The introduction warns that, in the event of a real tsunami (or earthquake) it’s best not to stop and “explain geology.” Fortunately for readers eager to learn all about tsun ..read more

The Girl Who Sang is a Holocaust survival memoir by Estelle Nadel and illustrator Sammy Savos that tells the former’s story of hiding from the Nazis and eventually fleeing her native Poland. Born Enia Feld, the author’s story begins in April 1939 in Borek, in southern Poland. Enia is the youngest child in her family. Her older brothers are Shia and Minashe and her older sister is Sonjia. Her family are practicing Jews who farm and are friends with their Gentile (non-Jewish) neighbors. When the tale begins, the family are celebrating Passover and discussing the news about Hitler and the Nazi’s ..read more

There’s a trope that consists of teens discovering they have powers. This trope did great for Marvel’s X-Men back in the 1960’s, and it’s one that still gets brought out whenever there is a special boy or girl discovering they have a destiny and a decision as to what they’ll actually use their powers for. Will those powers help others or, perhaps unintentionally, harm them? That is the dilemma facing Rowan Sterling, the teen heroine of The Harrowing, written by Kristen Kiesling and illustrated by Rye Hickman. Rowan lost her mother to very tragic circumstances, but her mother may have left the ..read more

Odette has a jellyfish in their eye. The doctors don’t have an answer. It’s a mild inconvenience until the day a second one appears. A college dropout trying to navigate family pressures and an uncertain future, Odette works at a local bookstore, keeps their pet rabbit, and develops a crush on a woman named Naina which may turn into something more. Dodging uncomfortable interactions with their mother, going out to awkward parties with their best friend and his girlfriend—Odettte’s life is small enough, but it’s comfortable. It’s the jellyfish that are the problem. No one has an answer and no o ..read more

When Iris starts her new job at Olympus, she quickly discovers several things. First, the two demigods she embarrassed herself in front of last week work here. Two, she’s one of only a handful of humans working in the building (the rest are demigods and gods). And three, she’s essentially a mail delivery person despite her fancy title. Oh, and on her first day, the god Eros discovers she’s not interested in his help to find a love match, so he becomes obsessed with helping her. This is a typical office romcom with the added bonus that the Greek gods are real and living among mortals. Although ..read more

K-pop idols with magic are all the rage; those without magic are considered tier-two. Sadly, that means that boy band Star One barely gets noticed. Once the members turn 19 years old and still don’t have magic powers, their company assumes that they’ll never be a tier-one group, and takes away all of their glam treatment. However, during an attack (possibly by an idol terrorist group), one of the Star One members manifests magical powers in a moment of desperation to keep his friends alive. After discovering his powers, the company hires an agent to train him and help the other members find th ..read more