The Secret of the Ravens by Joanna Cacao

In this charming middle grade graphic novel, orphan twins Elliot and Liza find themselves taking on a series of mysterious raven quests in order to make money and surviveonly for Liza to be mortally injured during one of their adventures. Now, Elliot must team up with a mysterious dark mage in order to save her.

Twin siblings Elliot and Liza only have each other. Their parents are gone. Their home was taken, and to survive on their own, they're forced to scrounge up plastic and metal to trade for coin within an abandoned garbage heap. Desperate to escape the vagabond cycle that they're trapped in, the answer to their plight seemingly appears when they stumble upon a Raven Questmagical tasks offered by mysterious message-carrying ravens that when successfully completed, promise the victors coin and untold riches.

In a gamble to change their fates, Elliot and Liza follow the trail of Raven Quests to the kingdom's capital, where the greedy rulers of the Kawumiti Kingdom reign and young people are enlisted to train as royal mages for the kingdom's army. But the Ravens Quests aren't as they seem, and the King is on a mission to hunt down vagrant participants like the twins.

When a quest goes terribly wrong, Liza is poisoned, and Elliot finds himself racing against the clock to find the cure. Now the only way to save his sister is to join forces with a royal apprentice and a dark mage with mysterious motives of her owneven if it means sacrificing everything. (From Clarion Books)

Joanna Cacao is a Canadian-Filipino writer and illustrator who lives in Winnipeg. Her other projects include illustrating The Tryout and Native Reflections.The Secret of the Ravens is her debut graphic novel.