The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Nimona meets Paper Girls with a literary twist in this wickedly funny graphic novel about a teenager who is swept up in a strange new universe and must save it from an all-consuming evil in order to return home.
One dark and stormy night, Haley sees a stranger drowning in the river. Since her greatest passion is Gothic romance novels, she knows her moment has come. But when Haley leaps into the water to rescue the stranger, she awakens in Willowweep. It certainly looks like the setting of one of her favorite books: A stately manor. A sinister housekeeper. Three brooding brothers. There’s even a ghost.
Except Willowweep is not what it seems. Its romantic exterior hides the workings of a pocket universe—the only protection our world has against a great force of penultimate evil, and its defenses are crumbling. Could cruel fate make Haley the heroine that Willowweep needs?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Contemporary high schooler Haley, a Black teen who wears a choker and flowing skirts, is unbothered by her classmates' open mockery but desperately resists her English teacher's attempts to shut down yet another essay on Wuthering Heights—or any other gothic romance. After Haley spots a drowning man while standing "wistfully in the rain," she attempts to save him, then washes ashore beneath remote Willowweep Manor, inhabited by handsome brothers Laurence, Cuthbert, and Montague and gruff housekeeper Wilhelmina, all white. Though Haley revels in the gothic setting of her dreams—complete with secret passages, a menacing forest, and a forlorn ghost—she learns that it's actually an internally anachronistic pocket dimension meant to protect Earth from "an all-devouring sapient miasma." As cracks form across Willowweep, Haley wields her extensive knowledge of gothic tropes to help the brothers regain control. If character development feels lacking, Baldwin's expressive full-color art—reminiscent of Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant—and Garrity's text both delight in their humor, conveying accentuated reactions, ranging from shocked to stoic, that lean into gleeful absurdity. A romp made especially enjoyable by Haley's indulgent delight in Willowweep's ability to make her literary dreams a reality. Ages 12–up.
