Title: Snowlands: A Blood Moon (Book One)
Author: Morr Meroz
Publisher: The Snowlands Company
Genre: Graphic Novels, Fantasy Adventure
First Publication: 2021
Language: English
Book Summary: Snowlands – A Blood Moon by Morr Meroz
A brand-new, full-color graphic novel series for animal fantasy fans that delivers a daring adventure and a mysterious threat that has animals–prey and predator alike–disappearing.
An orphaned white wolf cub exiled from her pack.
A lone snow leopard searching for her missing cub.
A bumbling wild cat who can’t hold a tune.
In the midst of a brutal winter in the unforgiving Snowlands, the wolf pack’s hunters and scouts start to go missing along with their primary food source, the mountain sheep. As the pack goes hungry, blame falls on Feba, an orphaned wolf cub whose white fur many elders believe is a bad omen.
When pack leaders vote to banish Feba, and perhaps worse, she runs off into the icy wilderness just as the other wolf cubs go missing. Lost in the treacherous mountains, Feba stumbles upon Usha, a snow leopard searching for her missing cub. While Usha wants nothing more than to continue her journey alone, she grudgingly allows Feba and a skittish young mountain cat, Batu, to follow her.
With a snowy trail full of deadly obstacles ahead, the unlikely trio sets out to find the Seeress, a magical being Usha hopes can find her missing son. Each step takes Usha, Feba, and Batu deeper into danger where they encounter other creatures–some helpful, some deceitful–and uncover a widespread peril in the mountains, the fate of the missing cubs, and what having a family truly means.
Snowlands is an epic tale of survival and friendship full of wild creatures, magical mysteries, and dangerous terrain perfect for middle-grade fans of Erin Hunter’s Braveland and Warriors series.
Book Review: Snowlands – A Blood Moon by Morr Meroz
Snowlands by Morr Meroz is just everything I want a comic to be. It’s profound and sophisticated: it’s imaginative and creative. It is at times literary, funny, erudite, tragic, exciting, intriguing. I just love everything about it. It’s graphic novel featuring cute, talking animals and may sound like something straight from the Disney’s world, but hold your horses until you read this first installment of a full-color graphic novel series set in fantastic animal kingdom in Snowlands.
While the wolf pack is suffering a harsh winter in the unforgiving Snowlands, their hunters and scouts disappear, along with the mountain sheep, their main food source. Feba, a young orphaned wolf cub whose white fur many elders believe is an omen, is blamed for the family’s lack of food. In order to escape a curse and death sentence, Feba is forced to runaway from her pack – which brings her on an epic adventure.
While wandering in the wild, she encounters many creatures, some of them are eager to join her adventure. On her way in the treacherous mountain, she meets Usha, a snow leopard looking for her cub, and Batu, a skittish young mountain cat. Building allies and friendships along the way, Feba is slowly becoming the moon queen of the wolves she always desired to be.
As the unlikely trio set out on a snowy trail, full of danger, they hope to locate the Seeress, a magical creature they hope can be the key to finding Usha’s son. As they explore hidden dangers in the mountains, they discover what it means to truly have a family. While you follow them on these adventures, the author takes you on a tour about friendship, heroism and self-preservation, responsibility and dealing with consequences and suffering.
The story was intriguing and jumps into a fairly fresh realm of Snowlands. The plot sprawls, it’s convoluted, it spans across treacherous mountains and a large cast. What keeps it together are the deeply personal stories on various scales. The characters are well developed and illustrated beautifully. They were all described wonderfully, and each has different traits and personalities. The author makes a bold choice to make them lucid cognizant beings. Morr Meroz inspires with this unconventional story
Morr Meroz is a great writer. He’s not a great writer just for comics, he’s a great writer overall, who happens to have made the graphic novel his medium. Morr Meroz’s sequential storytelling provides the meat to this graphic novel. Collin Fogel is definitely a talented designer, and his character designs give the animals a sense of both otherness and familiarity, as their look closely match the natural contours of their bodies and postures.
If fantasy and adventure novels catch your attention, then this is the book for you! It has very descriptive writing that puts images in your head, and the tension and emotions that the characters display might just give you goosebumps! If you have a friend that doesn’t read graphic novels, this book would be a good way to show them what the medium is capable of.
