Phantom Hearts

by Rosie Talbot

 



From the bestselling author of SIXTEEN SOULS comes a thrilling graphic novel with a supernatural murder mystery twist

 

Sixteen-year-old Malia is popular, pretty and smart, but underneath her carefully crafted façade she's struggling with anxiety. When a school bus crashes killing some of her fellow students, Malia is thrown into a further emotional spiral as she remembers the students; rebel and dropout Shepherd; volatile track star Russ; and brainy Emil. When Malia meets Keezy, the cute daughter of the local mechanic, the two begin to question the motive for the crash.

As Malia and Keezy start to uncover secrets, Malia starts to see ghosts wherever she goes. How will Malia find time to flirt with Keezy when pursued by restless spirits ... what don't the dead classmates want her to discover? And will Malia ever find the courage to tell Keezy how she feels?

 



A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER meets HEARTSTOPPER

Genres: Graphic Novels, LGBT, Mystery, Romance, Lesbian, Young Adult, Queer

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2024

About the author

A lover of dark and tightly woven stories, Rosie is inspired by creepy things in junk shops, haunted houses and strange magic. She is a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative and Write Mentor.

By day she works as a bookseller. By night, she spends time sewing big skirts with even bigger pockets and wondering why her family has a suspiciously large collection of cauldrons. She currently resides in a mysterious pocket of the Sussex countryside with her very patient spouse and two cats called Tinkerfluff and Captain Haddock.

You can connect with Rosie via Tiktok and Instagram (@merrowchild) or on her website www.rosietalbot.co.uk.

Reviews

[Brend · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cool story, fast read... but you can't expect me to take scenes seriously if the artwork looks like the characters are constantly posing for a thirst trap

[Steph ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a minute to figure out the order of the speech bubbles sometimes but otherwise, this was a really good read. Loved the mystery of it and the atmosphere and the romances. Love the cover.

[Steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

truly flabbergasted by how much i hated this! the ghostly premise is intriguing and the cover is dreamy (though i will admit i initially mistook that streetlight for a ufo, and was sadly mistaken).

i love the idea of a ragtag friend group composed of both ghost kids and living kids, all trying to solve the mystery of how the ghost kids died. there's a range of queer representation, including a trans kid who was closeted in life, but whose ghost form matches their true gender!! so heartwarming. there's also a range of mental health rep among the characters. conceptually, this book is really sweet and poignant.

but the story is clumsy, predictable, and drags on and on. numerous clues for the twist are laid out VERY early in the book, and the resolution is so very obvious. it's borderline offensive to lay such heavyhanded clues, as though the authors think their audience is too dimwitted to figure it out.

the manga-inspired art style has really pretty paneling and details, but i detest the character designs. literally every character is white and rail-thin with serious eyebrows, angular jaws, and fillered lips. they all look like caricatures of instagram models. this is not a healthy representation of humans. and we get enough of that crap elsewhere, we don't need it in our books!

[Sylvie {Semi-Hiatus} · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5 stars!

[elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

i can’t stop fucking sobbing. please send help.

[♡ J U L I A ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I AM NOT OKAY LIKE WTF WAS THAT BOOK?! I LOVED IT SM BUT I AM STILL CRYING BECAUSE OF IT!!!💔💔💔

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry I just can't get over how every character looks like they recently got their lips and eyelashes done. the only way I knew who was who was by their hair

[Alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some loves sneak up on you, but other times it hits you like lightning.

[Natalie all_books_great_and_small · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review as part of the book tour hosted by Kaleidoscopic book tours.

Phantom Hearts is a stunning graphic novel about Malia who is struggling with anxiety and depression and feels alone. Pretty and popular at school but feeling misunderstood and unsupported, Malia doesn't quite know her place in the world. When a fatal accident occurs involving her father (who's suffered with his mental health for a long time), and she begins to see the ghosts of the teens killed, Malia knows she has to help them. As Malia trys to figure out if the accident was an accident or sabotage and who the murderer could be, she meets Keezy, who's mysterious and definitely into Malia and they begin to try to connect the dots. Malia realises the ghosts need to fulfil unfinished business before they can pass over onto the other side together, and her father may yet join them.
I did guess one of the twists in this book but didn't see the other coming at all. This book has lots of LGBTQ+ reps, mental health reps and I connected well with Malia from the start. If you loved heartstopper you'll definitely want to pick this book up. The illustrations are beautiful, and the writing is well spaced and clear to easily read.

[Esmé · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was really cute! a little predictable, but nonetheless poignant and lovely. i did find the layout a little confusing at times, knowing which order to read the panels and who was speaking sometimes got a little muddled, but overrall i loved this. i loved the respect for 10 things i hate about you (the bisexual film of all time), i loved emil getting the right name and pronouns on her headstone, and i absolutely adored the final lines.

[Heaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, thank you Scholastic UK for sending me a finished copy in advance.

This graphic novel was amazing, from the story telling to the stunning art style, it’s truly the best autumn read. Phantom Hearts follows Malia who we see struggles with her mental health, anxiety is what I believe it to be, whilst dealing with the aftermath of her secondary school’s school bus crashing, killing 4 students and putting her father in a coma. We see her trying to uncover the truth behind the incident which may or may not have been an accident, along with the help of a cute girl she meets during her investigation called Keezy, as well as the ghosts of 3 of the victims. I had such a great time trying to pick up on clues that Malia herself wasn’t able to see at first, and ended up discovering two plot twists (one of them being a major one but not realising the one tiny detail/reveal in part of it) before her which was entertaining. I loved each character so much, from Malia to Ethan to Shepard and Emil and Russ. It made my heart break every time I remembered that they were ghosts and there was no way for them to come back, they had died. They were all so loveable and real, so it hurt knowing how this would end for them and us as the readers.

I will say, I had to remove a star because I felt like at times, the speech bubbles weren’t organised in the best way possible so it made it harder to understand the order in which things were being said. It made the reading experience a little frustrating for me considering how much I’m used to reading mangas, graphic novels and comics. Besides that, I really appreciated this graphic novel and all it made me feel whilst reading it.

Phantom Hearts is out October 24th so definitely keep an eye out for it or preorder it if you can.

[Elizabeth Knowles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a sobbing mess as usual.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 🌟

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graphic novel, murder mystery, ghosts, found family - sounds like a fun time, right?

So why was I full on sobbing by the end of it? 😭

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
Sooooo,
Im kinda sad.
I hyped this up so much in my mind, literally waited to read it until I could get a physical copy from ENGLAND (I live in Australia) because I LOVE Rosie.

Dont get me wrong, the art is very pretty, but Its TOO pretty y’know? Every single panel the characters are posed perfectly and IG ready. Where is the weird? The blushy awkward faces? The charm? A lot of the characters looked the same as well, like could only differentiate them based on accessories, which was wildy confusing.

The story was good, a little rushed but thats to be expected with the format, graphic novels cant hold as much detail without being excessively long. I did feel the lack of connection between the story and the art style thou. I didn’t connect with the characters like, at all. The banter was good in sections and the main plotline of mystery and betrayal was decent, but I didn’t feel it was built on enough to make a truly engrossing story.

The plot twist at the end was very predictable, a gut punch, but I saw it coming.

Overall, this was okay. Glad I read it, but not likely to read it again.

[sage · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

the beginning was CONFUSING but once it got into the groove it was a really good story and made me cry. also the art style was gorgeous!!! but the placement of the speech bubbles was all over the place and often hard to follow. lovedddd all the representation though and u know if there’s a sapphic graphic novel im going to read it !!!!

[bri · Rating 1 out of 5]

why did every character have a fucking yassified filter on their face the entire time. dogshit

[currentlyreadingbynat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phantom Hearts was very cute, a little predictable, and ultimately quite poignant. I did struggle at times with the layout as figuring out the order of panels and speech bubbles could be confusing and I think the story would’ve benefited from being in colour. That said, the mystery was interesting, the reveal worked really well, and the ending was quietly bittersweet. Not perfect, but a lovely, decent read overall.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very cute, heartwarming, and surprisingly deep graphic novel. I was worried the lack of colour in the artwork would be distracting, but it was very easy to get past. While I understand the reasoning for the lack of colour, I do still think it would have elevated the artwork. I did find myself getting slightly confused by which speech bubble I was meant to be following, but that's likely to be more of a me problem than a problem with the book. I guessed part of the twist but not the entire thing, allowing me to feel both satisfied and surprised by the ending of the story. Overall, I definitely enjoyed it, and I would recommend.

[Bree · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous read with all of Rosie Talbot’s trademark storytelling. Inclusivity in spades and the stunning illustrations just top off this beautiful graphic novel that had me in tears by the end.

[rose edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very cute read. the end to the mystery was a bit anti-climatic but i enjoyed it nonetheless

[Tyler Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devoured this!

This was definitely something a little bit different for me as i'm not one to read graphic novels that often, however I LOVED this, from the characters to the plot and the amazing art work, the minute I started this I was hooked. Talbot so effortlessly mixes both romance and mystery, but does it so well that you can't look away, this was an action packed read that I was unable to put down.

Malia is a relatable character that was easy for me to connect to and I think this would be the case for anyone reading this. But don't worry because Rosie has included a range of diverse characters in this that I fell in love with and i'm sure you will too. This is truly the perfect cozy spooky mystery that you need on your tbr!

[Pixie 🍜 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sobbed my heart out for reals

[Mostly Sapphic Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like 2.75 stars?? This one's hard to rate.

The characters are likeable even though there are too many of them. The art is nice even if everyone does look like a conventionally attractive white Instagram model with too much lip filler. Parts of the story are fun to follow even if there are confusing jumps in logic and ghost mechanics that appear conveniently. The formatting is mostly functional even though I probably would have picked a different font and some of the text bubbles are placed in positions that make it hard to know which panel to read next. I liked the relationships. Mostly.

There's nothing about this that's exceptional, but the flaws don't drag it down to the point of unreadability, so I guess everything averages out to... slightly subpar?

[Ashley (omgitsyelhsa) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was decent but I didn’t care for the actual graphic novel. The artwork wasn’t my vibe and it wasn’t always easy to figure out which order the text/boxes went in on any given page.

[Cait · Rating 1 out of 5]

the story was not my favourite, but I really was not a fan of the artwork, in a way that made it hard fr me to engage with the story.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Silence is never quiet. It's the high ring inside your brain that summons all the little mind goblins to whisper the worst parts of you back to yourself"

" 'Benny used to say that a bit of stargazing is good for the soul. When we were in the desert, we'd climb on top of the tour bus... And make up stories about the stars and all the amazing things they'd seen.' 'I always ignore the stars and watch the void instead.' 'Between the stars, there's always more stars. We just can't see them.' 'It's still the vastness of everything, a whole universe stretching up and out. And I'm down here' "

" 'Life can't all be for nothing.' 'Why not? In this history of the universe, the human era is a mere hiccup.' 'You might be small, Malia, but you can fit a whole universe inside a human heart.' "

"Sometimes we only get people for a heartbeat, that's it. It doesn't make them less important"

"You helped me realize that there's power in being small, like Ma, she fixes cars for a living but she pours so much care into each one. If nothing we do matters, then we get to make our own meaning"

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Phantom Hearts was an emotional and mysterious read. The only downside was that the mystery behind the bus crash felt slightly anti-climatic after all that build-up. However, the characters were well-written and drawn. Talbot and Maxwell had created the characters so well that it was easy to feel their emotions. The characters were so well done that although the big twist near the end was obvious, the twist still had a big impact when it all unfolded.

[Vonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

The mental health representation got me. I couldn’t relate more to the main character if I tried — being a sapphic photographer who is depressed. The story in general was so wholesome, I’ve had a hard time knowing in which order to read the text bubbles at times but that’s about it. The art style is gorgeous, I kept observing the different shading techniques. The setting of each scene was so well-thought and illustrated. I guessed half of the ending but I still am happy with the message it leaves.

[lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone is currently looking for a graphic novel like heartstopper but make it HEARTBREAKING I got the right graphic novel for you.

The found family & the rep in the story WAS FANTASTIC GOD I LOVED IT SM.