The Harrowing

On the same day that 17-year-old Rowan almost shares a kiss with her longtime best friend and crush Lucas, she discovers that she is a Harrow, a seer of death who, via hand-to-hand contact with the perpetrator, can glean murderous intent before a grisly death occurs. Seeking her father’s help, she’s sent to Rosewood, where Rowan and the other enlisted Harrows train to identify imminent criminals—“incrims”—by their red or black aura and to tag them with a tracker, which, unbeknownst to the Harrows, leads to an incrim’s sedation, imprisonment, and sometimes worse. Her mother’s murder three years ago motivates a grieving Rowan to use her premonitions to prevent anyone else from losing a loved one to violent crime, but after confirming Lucas’s incrim status, she must grapple with the inevitability of the Harrows’ premonitions and the necessity of Rosewood’s vigilante operation. Ominous, high-contrast illustrations by Hickman (Buzzing) thoroughly match the misanthropic mood Kiesling sets. Slashes of color, mostly in hematic red, punctuate grayscale spreads and signal the blood-soaked climax of this visceral graphic novel, a jumping-off point for a critique of the prison industrial complex. Rowan appears white; some secondary characters have brown skin. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)