The Deep Dark

Restrained high school senior Mags Herrera diligently shoulders every responsibility that gets thrown at her. Even over Christmas break, she cares for her ill abuela, works at a local diner, and stalwartly harbors a dangerous secret that has troubled her family for two generations. Enter Nessa, Mags’s warm and effervescent childhood friend who has unexpectedly returned to SoCal for the first time since her sudden departure ten years before, ready to reconnect. As the two rekindle their easy friendship—and start a romance—they unearth memories from their past of a boy’s decade-old accidental death and its cause, which is caged in Mags’s basement to protect everyone—except Mags herself. But if she wants to grieve the past and grow into her most authentic self, the confinement cannot hold. Majority grayscale illustrations depict Mags’s present while flashbacks are rendered in unbridled color. Pairing measured pacing, dynamic paneling, robust dialogue, and abundantly realized main and supporting characters, Ostertag (The Girl from the Sea) delivers an expansive triumph—her best yet—to examine issues of grief, identity, intergenerational trauma, and reconnection. Includes an author’s note that shares how “making this book changed [Ostertag] for the better.” Ages 14–up. (June)