5/5 Stars. Absolutely stunning! The artwork is gorgeous! The story line immediately draws you in. Though I’m as confused about the rules of the world around us as Madeline, I loved everything about this! This magical graphic novel tells the story of a young girl, Madeline, who cares for the dead. Madeline and her father Barnabus live on an isolated island. Barnabus the clock master would love nothing more than to keep it remote and protect Madeline, but the whispers of the dead, the fate of the stars, the stuck moon, and the current Night Mother have other plans. There is nothing I didn’t like about this, except maybe how short it was. I look forward to reading on in Vol. 2. Thank you Oni Press, Jeremy Lambert, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for review!

A magical story about a girl whose life has never been hers. Very interesting and beautiful art!
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for a review!

I enjoyed the opening to the book. There seemed to be a melodic undertone to the opening and the beginning read like a fairytale.

Once it switched to Madeline's perspective, I did begin to lose interest though. It felt like we were immediately told most of her thoughts and history in one burst, versus the details being woven into the story.

It was an interesting premise and I really enjoyed the vibrant illustrations, especially the use of blue and green.

Mysterious, sad and fantasic with beautiful art!
Madeline Tock and her Father are Lighthouse Keppers in a town under the curse of the Night Mother, a spirit whose job was to guide souls to their afterlife with her lantern but has started taking them at random
Instead of protecting ships from crashing, maddie retrieves the dead from the sea to bury.
When a girl named Nura is pulled from the sea, maddie learns of a Lullaby and makes a life or death decision to stop the Night Mother

2.5 ⭐️ The Graphic Novel “The Night Mother Vol.1” by Jeremy Lambert follows the young girl Madeline Tock that lives in perpetual darkness on a little island near a town and takes care of burying the deceased townspeople. But all her life she felt a calling that is connected to her gift to communicate with the dead and soon she has to embrace her powers to save the one’s she cares for.

I really loved the color scheme of the book. The saturated colors combined with the flow of the illustrations was visually pleasing. I didn’t like the way the people were painted that much but the majority of the illustrations looked amazing.

The story was mysterious and action packed. However I could not connect to the characters. The story was told in a removed way and did not immerse me at all.

A big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Oni Press for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-copy of this graphic novel!

I thought this graphic novel was pretty good. The artwork was absolutely stunning (easily the highlight). As for the story, I thought the core was good. It was an interesting setup and a cool idea. I just feel like it was a bit too fast paced. I feel like if it were just a bit longer or slower paced then we would've gotten to know the characters better and the emotional beats would have hit a little harder.

The art was so pretty and interesting, but not much happened in the story and it ended on a cliff hanger. Hopefully another volume come out in not too long so I can find out what happens next. It was very short on its own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this graphic novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

The art style for this graphic novel was GORGEOUS, all of the characters were beautifully rendered and I feel like the colors blended together so well. Madeline is a super cute main character, I'm excited to see more of her journey and learn who she truly is! The ending definitely ended on a cliffhanger that made me wish the next release date was coming soon! Can't wait for more.

This book is so astoundingly beautiful, that there are pages that I would genuinely purchase to hang on my wall.

Paired with a gripping and well paced story l was completely engrossed the entire time I was reading this, and was absolutely devastated to reach the end of the volume, desperately needing to know what was going to happen next.

My one nitpick is the missed opportunity at the beginning to take on a more poetic quality or something similar to what we find in the children's stories we can quote by heart. I feel like it would have lured the reader in more, but also the beginning of this book just gives those ✨vibes✨

In the end: I will definitely be picking up the rest of this series.

Thank you Oni Press and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. Gorgeously illustrated and dreamlike, this short story felt rushed and somewhat confusing to me. I was unable to connect with the characters, thus am not sure I’ll continue with this series.

The Night Mother delivers a dark fairytale of a story accompanied by gorgeous, detailed illustrations. The art is absolutely beautiful – Sharpe’s layered images are full of color and precision and fully absorbed me. Perhaps best of all, the art perfectly matches the feel of the story, crafting an immersive experience that I absolutely loved. At times, I felt it could be a little text-heavy, reading more like an illustrated book than a graphic novel, but especially past the opening scenes there was a better balance between text and art – and I think that might’ve been partially because I just loved the art so much that I wanted to see more of it!

I really enjoyed the story as well. The Night Mother truly feels like a fairytale – but rather than the sanitized versions commonly found today, it harkens back to the dark roots of the Grimm Brothers, where a happily-ever-after was far from guaranteed. Although a relatively simple story, it unfolds with smooth precision, introducing in a relatively short page count a variety of compelling, fascinating characters, most of all so Madeline and the Night Mother. I hope to read future volumes of this story!

Recommended to lovers of older middle-grade, original fairytales, and dark fantasy; 4.5 stars, rounded up

A charming, whimsical and scary story with so much imagination and interesting characters. If feels a little bit like Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost meets Coraline in a weird way. I could totally see Laika creating an adaptation of this.

Illustrations that blew my mind, great creepy story and atmosphere and some emotional moments. 10/10

I really enjoyed The Night Mother by Jeremy Lambert. The pacing was excellent. It’s so action-packed, a real page turner! Definitely a good intro to the series that will keep readers coming back.

I can’t wait to see where the story goes because it seems there maybe some secrets and maybe even some unreliable characters.

There were a few heart wrenching moments so I can only imagine that this series will be an emotional roller coaster!

Beautiful artwork that really gives you a certain ambience and vibe as you read.

Perfect for those who love dark fantasy and fantasy genres.

The story is very interesting and unique. The art work is generally very beautiful. However, the main character is supposed to be twelve and is drawn like a middle-aged woman. It was very distracting.

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this advanced copy.

It has been a while since I've read a middle grade graphic novel so while I absolutely loved the moody color palate and storyline, it did heavily rely on telling and repeating instead of showing. Especially when the synopsis pretty much covers everything that happened in such a small set of pages. Granted, graphic novels take a lot of work so I understand needing to break things into volumes to get the full story, I'm just a little confused with how things progressed. It felt more like the first chapter instead of a full volume.

OH NO cliffhanger🥲🥲🥲

I enjoyed it. A part of earth stuck in eternal nighttime, a lone gravedigger living on an island with his adoptive daughter, couldn’t tell her the truth and only wanted to keep her safe. The daughter, didn’t understand why her dad was so strict on her and kept heading head first into dangers. A corrupt night mother who supposed to collect souls of the dead and turn them to moonlight, but instead stealing the souls, even the living ones, for her own power.

Whimsical yet eerie illustrations, captured the atmosphere of the story well. Can’t wait to read the next volume

The moon has stopped, and nobody knows why, and for Madeline Tock, this is an unbearable situation. Her father was alreading an unbearing worry wort but now that there is no daylight, he has basically made her a prisoner in their home. A rule that Madeline tries to follow, but one night, she sees something incredible out her window, a young boy running across the waves! Knowing she must save him, she rushes out of the house, not knowing that this may be the very last time she sees the father she loves so very much.

This just needs to be made into a Disney movie. I said what I said. This is such a perfect combination of wholesome and spooky that I can't see it not being a Disney movie. And honestly, I don't think I've ever read a book and said, "Ya know what? I need this to be a movie." So I'm pretty sure that's about the highest praise I can give a book. Plus, the art is absolutely gorgeous!

Overall, I definitely recommend this. It was just a super cute, spooky little fairy tale.

As always, thanks to NetGalley and Oni Press for the eArc!

I know of Jeremy Lambert because of his Buffy comics even if I had never read them. But the name made me look closer and what I found made me very happy. His cooperation with Alexa Sharpe results in a great start to a possible wonderful comic series.

And the first thing I realized are the fantastic art - the colors, the line art and the panel build are exactly my kind of style and I loved especially the use of colors to support the story.

What I also like is how the characters were introduced and that it transported a magical feeling that slowly became dark. Not only is the concept of Madelines powers, what it means in a world without sun. Also what clocks have for a meaning is lovingly included.

All in all it is a very lovingly constructed comic with many strengths. And I love that it will be concluded in three volumes because I am always on the lookout for shorter comic stories. I really hope that a German publisher will pick it up because then I will push it into the library system I work in. Until then I will for sure buy a physical copy for myself!

A very beautifully illustrated YA comic about a girl who hears the dead and is being hunted by the Night Mother in a world where the moon stopped moving in the sky.
This is a first volume introducing the world, the main characters, and the danger of the story, and all those are very intriguing, but sadly the introduction was a real sludge to get through - which is quite something to say about an illustrated book.
The choice was to narrate the first 40% of the book, which I'm sure I'm not the only person hating. I can't stand movies that begin with voice overs and that rule applies to comics too.
Nothing that was narrated needed to be, and the plot could have started straight into the story without losing anything. In fact, it would have made it much more interesting and we would have had a chance to get to care a little more for Maddie, the hero, and could have been surprised by the appearance of the Night Mother, and doubted her words or not, if everything about her hadn't been spoiled previously and repeated for good measure by the friend character just a few pages later. I know this is YA, but it's no reason to insult teen intelligence and give them mediocre stories.
A big shame and missed opportunity especially when you have such lovely drawings.

A wonderfully fantastical story set in a world where the moon has stopped moving, stuck in the sky and there are no more days just nights.

The illustrations are rich and have such a warm palette when in the house of Tock, but when outside the world is full of cool blues and shades illuminated by the ever present full moon.

Madeline Tock is a foundling and can hear the whispers of the dead and lives on the graveyard island with her dad who makes clocks but knows so much more.

The story builds a wonderful mythology about The Night Mother, especially the latest one that has stopped the moon and is behaving differently from all the previous Night Mothers.

This first volume does a wonderful job of setting up all the characters, introducing the mythology that will pull the story through and adding a nice bit of peril to make us want the next volume, now please.

I received this from NetGalley and Oni Press in exchange for an honest review.