Scott Peterson (2) (1968–)

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss.)

Molly and her younger brother Michael are having a rough year. First their mom gets remarried; they like their stepfather Dave well enough, but his seven-year-old daughter Heather is a pill. While it's true that she had a tragic childhood - she watched her mom die in a house fire, after all - Heather delights in making everyone around her miserable. She's spoiled, cruel, and enjoys making up stories about her new step show more family.

As if that's not bad enough, Dave and Jean are relocating the family from Baltimore to a renovated church in rural Holwell, miles away from their friends and academics. While their new home is quaint, even charming, not everyone is thrilled with the small cemetery housed in its back yard. The many ghost stories spawned by the graveyard - as well as nearby Harper House - set Molly's nerves on edge. Even creepier, Heather seems obsessed with the cemetery - particularly a long-forgotten, solitary tombstone that bears her initials: H.E.H.

Molly soon becomes convinced that Heather has befriended - or summoned - the ghost of Helen Elizabeth Harper, a young girl who also lost her family in a house fire over a century ago. But how can Molly save Heather from herself - and Helen - when the 'rents won't take her seriously, and Heather hates her guts?

WAIT TILL HELEN COMES is based on a 1980s middle grade novel by Mary Downing Hahn, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised that it skewed a little young for me. The story is engaging enough, though it wraps up a little neatly for my tastes. (The ending has a bit of that '80s after school special vibe.) The story is narrated by Molly, and I was hoping for an unreliable (or at least semi-reliable) narrator twist that sadly never materialized. The art's well done and complements the story nicely. show less

So much fun! Which, for a story that is basically about truck gladiators, seems a little glib, but it is.

The Roman Empire was never defeated, and now reigns globally. The gladiator tradition has grown with it, as well; now drivers race through unpredictable courses, with rule changes possible any second, all aiming for that elusive centurion status. Axl, so far, has 99 wins...

I am always a sucker for fight-for-your-life races (Velocity, Wolf By Wolf,, the Mad Max series...), and Truckus show more Maximus really delivered. There's action, there's stakes (though I wish Tank had actually died, or was more visibly disfigured, to really hammer those stakes in), there's capricious, power-hungry, inscrutable rulers... everything I could ever ask for.

The colors are bright and eye-catching, and the character designs clear and distinct. I even like the ending: Of course everything was against Axl becoming a centurion, and of course they threw all they could to stop him. And while it's a little ambiguous, I believe he threw the last race, to save his team. Because he's all about the honor. show less

Wait Till Helen Comes, the graphic novel, is a spooky, atmospheric tale about a girl named Molly who moves with her family from Baltimore to a secluded church-turned house nestled in the country. Molly has no interest in the paranormal so when she discovers a hidden graveyard in the woods near her home, she wants nothing to do with it. And when her stepsister, heather, begins sneaking off to the graveyard, talking to someone named 'Helen', and generally acting strange, she wants no part of show more that either. It's only when Molly begins to fear for Heather's life that she faces her fear to save her family.

I loved this book. I love a good ghost story and this had it all. Creepy house, creepy graveyard, a trip to the library to research on a ghost. There were moments that were genuinely creepy and had me a little spooked. I would have loved this book as a child. All that being said, the parents frustrated the life out of me. I didn't like how they moved to this new house with the intention of having Michael and Molly babysit Heather while they worked. It seems unfair to put those parental responsibilities on children, especially when the child being babysat is noticeably struggling and defiant. I also disliked how Molly was blamed for literally everything when she obviously was not the one to blame.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author! show less

I'm not usually fond of psychedelic stories, but this was pretty decent. While I don't care for Jones' drawings of Batman (he looks good in shadows, but off, to me, when you actually see his face) his Scarecrow is undeniably amazing and horrifying, and the art throughout is quite good, and only very occasionally more disorienting than it intentionally should be. The story is fairly basic, but is built on a solid concept and is well executed. The dialogue is also pretty decent, a few oddities show more aside (Alfred referring to 'Master Robin', for instance, rings false, when surely he would have said 'Master Dick' or 'Master Jason' or whichever one he meant, and similarly it always bothers me to no end when Batman, however disoriented, refers to the person on his radio as 'Alfred' in public) and the occasionally clunky interaction with various Arkham staff.
I like how the vision Scarecrow behaves a lot more competent, a lot more dangerous seeming, than the Scarecrow we see during Batman's more lucid moments. I like the unanswered question of which inmate helped Scarecrow create the toxin (and the implication it might have been the Joker is nicely chilling, considering the story's beginning). I thought Gordon got to be really cool in a very Gordon-y way, which is always one of my favourite things to happen in a Batman story. I am similarly fond of a strong Alfred scene, and the pivotal one he gets here is very good. Details in it ring a tiny bit off to me at times, but at the heart of it, still a very worthwhile sequence that brought the story together.
All in all, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. 3.25/5 show less