Tantalize: Kieren's Story

by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ming Doyle (Illustrator)

Overview

Illustrated by Ming Doyle, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Tantalize is reimagined as a graphic novel —seen through Kieren’s werewolf eyes.

As a hybrid werewolf, Kieren is destined to join an urban Wolf pack and learn to master his shift. Soon, he’ll leave everything behind: home, school, his family, and Quincie, his human best friend . . . who’s beginning to be a whole lot more than a friend. For years, Kieren has managed to keep his desires — and his wolf — at bay. But when the chef at Quincie’ s family restaurant is brutally murdered, Kieren resolves to be there for her, even if it means being framed. Even if it means watching Quincie’s beloved restaurant morph into a vampire lair. But when the new chef begins wooing her, how long can Kieren control his claws? How long can he protect Quincie — and himself? In an elegant graphic edition featuring cinematic sequential art by debut artist Ming Doyle and lush, romantic cover art by Sam Weber , bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith re-envisions her delicious dark fantasy through wolfish eyes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763641146
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	08/23/2011
Series:	Tantalize Series , #5
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the acclaimed author of the prose novel of Tantalize as well as Eternal, a New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, and Blessed, all set in the same fictional universe. She says of Tantalize, “An unjust accusation. A true love in peril. It’s enough to make you open your teeth and howl.” A member of the faculty at the Vermont College MFA program in writing for children and young adults, she lives in Austin, Texas.

Ming Doyle was born in 1984 to an Irish-American sailor and a Chinese-Canadian librarian. Since earning her BFA from Cornell University in 2007, she has depicted the sequential exploits of zombie superheroes, demonic cheerleaders, vengeful cowboys, and dapper mutants. Tantalize marks her first full-length graphic novel as well as her first encounter with a were-opossum. She lives in Boston.

Editorial Reviews

Kieran is an Irish-Mexican–American honors student at an Austin, Tex., high school who also happens to be half werewolf in this graphic novel addition to the teen supernatural romance genre. If his affliction were not enough to grapple with, the time is growing nigh that he will need to leave home to join a wolf pack, and he is in love with his human best friend Quincie. A crime at Quincie’s family restaurant sets the story in motion, as Kieran dodges vampires and fights for his true love’s soul, all while defending his own name and keeping his grades up. While supernatural metaphors for the transformations and horrors of adolescence are well-worn territory, Leitich Smith, who first published Tantalize as a young adult novel, provides a face-paced, twisty, enjoyable ride and compelling characters who develop as the story unfolds. Kieran’s sidekicks, a were-armadillo and a were-possum, provide some welcome perspective on the hero’s obsession, keeping the story from getting dragged down into too much teen angst. Doyle’s illustrations, while slightly static, capture the intensity of the emotions between the star-crossed couple. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

This is the graphic novel version of TANTALIZE so it’s a book that might appeal to reluctant readers and to people who really are visual thinkers. It’s gothic, it’s dark. But it also has humor. There’s romance, very sweet romance, and there’s controversy and there’s justice issues and bad boys don’t always get away, but you’re not quite sure.
—NPR Tell Me More

This format- and genre-blending story delivers on several counts as a vampire-werewolf adventure, a mystery, a romance with teeth and claws, an authentic look at diversity (both ethnic and species), and a darn good read.
—Booklist

Leitich Smith, who first published TANTALIZE as a young adult novel, provides a face-paced, twisty, enjoyable ride and compelling characters who develop as the story unfolds. Doyle's illustrations capture the intensity of the emotions between the star-crossed couple.
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Gr 9 Up—Readers of Smith's novel Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007) will be excited to see the story of the secondary character fully revealed in this graphic-novel spin-off. While Quincie Morris struggles to reopen her family's restaurant in the wake of a murder, she pushes her best friend, Kieren, away. To protect her, he devotes himself to solving the mystery of the murder and finds himself embroiled in a vampire plot. As a hybrid werewolf, Kieren doesn't fear the paranormal, but the investigation leads him not only to the guilty parties, but also to truths about his werewolf ancestors that are hard to reconcile. While the story stands on its own, teens will appreciate it far more if they have read Tantalize. The artwork, which focuses mainly on the faces of the characters, features large lips, resulting in some distorted expressions in some scenes. However, both the art and the text come together in some touching moments, particularly between Kieren and his younger sister. Like Tantalize, this parallel point of view leaves readers wanting to know more about what transpires in Kieren's and Quincie's futures.—Alana Joli Abbott, formerly at James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT

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