First Review of Terry Griggs' Nieve

from VOYA:

Nieve's parents' business has improved, but Nieve is worried. Her parents are professional sympathizers, and although Nieve appreciates the new clothes and treats, she is worried by the increasing need for her parents' services. The world is becoming darker. Strange plants are appearing, spiders and bats are becoming more plentiful, and people are more forgetful and fractious. As Nieve begins to discover the truth, she is drawn into a world of old myths and magic.

Although complete in itself, this debut in a trilogy sets up an interesting meta-narrative to be resolved in future volumes. As the story progresses, the tone gets progressively darker, ending on a hopeful but guarded note. The tone is more than amply supported by the illustratuions, which reference both Tim Burton and Edward Gorey. Part allegory, part Irish folk tale, the novel succeeds in dropping the reader into a world both familiar and slightly off kilter. Readers looking for good fantasy will enjoy the novel on its own, but readers with a passing familiarity with the darker denizens of Irish mythology will find much to enjoy.

-- Steven Kral

Nieve's World

The ARCs for one of our Spring titles arrived in the driveway this afternoon and will be going out to bloggers and book reviewers and film companies and librarians and booksellers and many others over the next several days. The first new YA work by Terry Griggs since she finished her award-winning YA series Cat's Eye Corner, Nieve is a dark, haunting, disturbingly enjoyable novel. Like last Spring's Thought You Were Dead, Nieve is fabulously illustrated, this time by her son, Alexander Griggs-Burr. Over the last several days half a dozen illustrations have made it into my inbox, and I thought I'd share a couple of my favourites.