Children of the Night (When Monsters Wake Book 1) by Victoria Setian
Abrams Fanfare (January 2026)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Victoria Setian started her career in Gotham City, specifically the third floor of DC Comics in the heart of New York City. Her writing chops eventually landed her a role on the DC interactive team, and since then she’s continued her crossover work with credits including the Batman: Arkham series, Mortal Kombat X, and Just Cause 4. She’s a game developer conference speaker and NYU Game Center Incubator advisor, and she helped pilot the Girl Scouts Game Design patch with Women in Games International. When she’s not tinkering on her next project, she’s hanging with her family or practicing Armenian folk dance.
Savanna Ganucheau is a comic artist from New Orleans. She coauthored her first graphic novel, Bloom, with Kevin Panetta in 2019. Bloom received a distinction from the Junior Library Guild, a GLAAD Award nomination, and Amazon’s pick for Best Graphic Novel of 2019. In 2021, she adapted the novel Turtle in Paradise into the graphic novel format. Ganucheau has been creating comics since she was in third grade, and self-published her work in local comic book shops throughout high school. Her newest YA graphic novel is Children of the Night (When Monsters Wake Book 1).
Mina Murray is followed by death — at least, that’s the rumor in her small town of New Whitby. An aspiring photojournalist, she has a knack for putting herself in unsettling situations to find interesting shots, like on the deck of the recently crashed boat the Demeter. Intrigued by the ghastly scene, Mina tries to unearth more information about the abandoned ship, the captain, and the missing crew. Instead, caught using the school’s photo lab, she finds herself roped into her high school’s newspaper club covering the big school dance her friend, Lucy, is coordinating. It’s a major bummer, but all might not be too bad if it gets her closer to Jon, her crush and guitarist for the local punk band the Romeros. But instead of catching Jon’s eye, Mina enters the orbit of Raf, the brooding (and frankly, hot) transfer student who has everyone under his thrall.
Setian is clearly retelling Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but uses the lens of a high school drama to engage young adult readers, which works well. Younger readers will probably be able to identify with the teens, their drama, the tension, which may come across as a bit simplistic or underdeveloped for adults. Still, Children of the Night promises to be the start of an exciting series from Victoria Setian which will get younger readers intrigued with horror.
