House of Clay

For a girl whose family used to be wealthy, starting work in a sweat shop turns out to be a life altering experience. Very soon, hard work is the least of her problems - she finds herself in the middle of a love tangle with no confidantes but a rude old card-reading lady with an eerily similar romantic past and a mute girl. The small seaside town offers nothing but a salty breeze to soothe her - or could it be that there is just a little bit of magic in the air, too? By the author of “Unholy Kinship.” "The art transcends what readers would normally expect to find in a graphic novel; any page in this book would not be out of place in a frame on the wall of an art gallery. This is a unique book for thoughtful, mature readers."-School Library Journal "For anyone reminiscing about Neil Gaiman’s sense of fantasy or looking for someone with a little “what if…” this is a comic book artist worth watching for." -Feminist Review "Gorgeously rendered. The surreal art is lovely." -The Onion "Romantic, Pre-Raphaelite color washes and poses mingle with modern fashions as well as concerns common to both styles’ eras. Nowak’s storytelling is sophisticated in its use of plot- and image-oriented symbolism, and readers who are Josephine’s peers, in particular, may appreciate this examination of their cares."-BOOKLIST