Written by Ian Boothby
Illustrated by Pia Guerra
Graphix (Scholastic)
978-1-5461-1117-7
208 pp.
Ages 12+
August 2026
This isn't the Ian Boothby I've read and reviewed before. His Sparks graphic novel series (illustrated by Nina Matsumoto) is fun and bright and funny and perfect for middle-grade readers who like stories of superheroes, cats, and weirdness. Frostbite is for older readers who like the darkness of a thriller with danger, the supernatural, and things that go bump in the night.
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| Illustration by Pia Guerra from Frostbite, written by Ian Boothby |
The first chapter is essentially a prologue in which a hockey team of teens and their coaches and driver get stranded on a snow-covered mountain road. When they trudge through the snow to a cabin they spot, they are attacked.
Now a sister-and-brother team of extreme athletes are dropped by chopper to snowboard down a mountain. At a stop along the way, their cameraperson, Bev, joins them on her board as Jen and Dante continue down to the meeting point with the chopper. But when they arrive, the helicopter is empty. The three make their way to a trading post where they meet Callum, a local, and Amber, a new employee, who take them by snowmobile to follow a guy who has stolen their snowboards. Tyler, the thief, is told by a trapper he comes across to run to the nearby cabin and to get to the roof, and he shares this info with his pursuers. Soon they learn why.
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| Illustration by Pia Guerra from Frostbite, written by Ian Boothby |
What lurks below the snow isn't just more snow and frozen ground. It's things with claws. And whether they will all survive and get to leave will be up to Ian Boothby and Pia Guerra.
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| Illustration by Pia Guerra from Frostbite, written by Ian Boothby |
Ian Boothby's story is definitely one of horror, but it also has supernatural elements, sport, a complicated sibling relationship, a clash of cultures, and more. The interaction of the characters—Dante and Jen, with Bev, Callum, Amber, and others—is rife with entitlement, trauma, problem-solving, and courage. How these young people work together, with some a little from outside, will be familiar to many teens. We've got the privileged young woman who things she's better than others. There's Bev who endures verbal abuse because she needs the job, though she aspires to more. There's someone who feels like they can't do anything right, and another who feels that the influencers are looking down on those who live in this remote community. Teen readers may have their own monsters and challenges in their lives, but Ian Boothby still makes these monsters and kids relatable. And he does it with a great story.
Illustrator Pia Guerra, partner of Ian Boothby, knows how to bring the terror without the gore and excessive violence. Sure, there are monsters coming after everyone, but they mostly stay beneath the snow's surface. When they do show themselves, portrayed with sharp teeth, extended claws, and odd verbalizations, they are creepy but not nightmarish. (Well, maybe we have to ask Jen and Amber and the others.) And Pia Guerra emphasizes the threat rather than the attacks. Just seeing the seething forms beneath the snow is frightening enough. By suggesting more about the monsters through their actions beneath the surface, Pia Guerra keeps the horror set correctly for readers of YA genre.
If you're a fan of horror, I might suggest squirrelling Frostbite away until winter when you can see heaps of snow on the ground and the possibility of snow monsters lurking below the surface is at its greatest. If being scared isn't your favourite thing, get the book now, read it in the sunshine and warmth of summer, knowing you'll have a great story and graphics ahead without fear of something invading your space from below ground.
