Graphic Novel Reviews: Nightmare in Savannah

Nightmare in Savannah is a little but The Craft and a little bit Southern Gothic. If that sentence raises your heart rate even a little bit, then this story is for you. It is the tale of Alexa who moves to Savannah to live with her grandfather. Making friends in high school can be hard, especially when the story that your parents are in jail follows you in the halls of your new school. Alexa is taken under the wing of local outcasts, Fae, Chloe, and Skye to ease her into her new life. It is not long before Alexa and her friends begin to notice a change in themselves and their power. A little reading reveals that they are changelings imbued with ancient faery power.  

Gwenn’s story and MacColl’s art style are amazing together. Savannah, as it appears to do whenever it is featured in any media, is a character unto itself – helping and hindering the characters as well as any plot device. Another aspect that is refreshing to read in Nightmare is its queer representation that crosses racial barriers – this is a subject that is close to author’s heart and it is beautifully handled. The characters in the story will be accessible to teen readers; they are not perfect, they sometimes act out, and pain – whether they inflict it or feel it – is a difficult part of life.

Nightmare in Savannah is suitable for high school readers and up, though more mature middle-grades readers can handle the subject matter. There is a little violence and some vice, but it fits into the story that Gwenn and MacColl set out to tell. This title will be of interest to those interested in the supernatural and the spooky.