- Fantasy
- Nightlights collection
- Ages 7–12
Nightlights
Part of the collectionNightlights→Two jaw-droppingly beautiful graphic novels — plus a collected omnibus with a new third story — following a girl whose imagination conjures whole worlds, ranging from eerie to wondrous.
- Books3 / 3
- Arcs2
- Span2017–2026
- StatusComplete
The series
At a glance.
Lorena Alvarez's Nightlights series follows Sandy, a girl who loves to draw above all else and who slips nightly into vivid worlds of her own imagining. The first book is a luminous, gently unsettling fable about creativity and the courage to hold on to your own ideas, when an eerie new classmate begins to covet Sandy's imagination. The second, Hicotea, trades some of that unease for wonder, sending Sandy through a turtle's shell into a hidden museum of the natural world. Rendered in extraordinary, saturated colour, the storytelling is carried as much by image as by text. Best read in order, the series moves from the eerie to the wondrous, and is collected — with a brand-new third story — in a tenth-anniversary omnibus.
Two jaw-droppingly beautiful graphic novels — plus a collected omnibus with a new third story — following a girl whose imagination conjures whole worlds, ranging from eerie to wondrous.
Primary themes
Overall tone
- Whimsical
- Thought provoking
- Dark
- Suspenseful
Read in publication order — Nightlights first, then Hicotea. The 2026 collected omnibus gathers both plus a new third story, Sune, and is the best way to read the complete series in one volume.
Two arcs
A series that changes as it goes.
- INarrative arcBooks 1–2 · 2017–2019Moderate sensitivity
Sandy's dream-worlds
The two original graphic novels, moving from eerie fable to wondrous adventure.
The heart of the series: two art-led graphic novels following Sandy as she crosses from the everyday into worlds of her own making. The first is the more unsettling — a fable about creativity and self-doubt, in which a strange new classmate begins to covet the imagination Sandy pours into her drawings. The second, Hicotea, is gentler and more wondrous, tumbling Sandy through a turtle's shell into a hidden museum of the natural world she must help set right. Both are told in luminous, saturated colour, with much of the story carried by image; the first earns a moderate flag for genuinely eerie imagery, the second is lighter and curiosity-led. Together they trace a movement from fear toward wonder.
- IIFormat arcModerate sensitivity
The collected omnibus
A tenth-anniversary omnibus gathering both graphic novels plus a new third story.
A celebratory collected edition that gathers the whole series in a single volume: the two original graphic novels, Nightlights and Hicotea, a brand-new third story called Sune, and bonus material from Lorena Alvarez. It is the ideal way to discover Sandy's world in full or to revisit it, and the only place to read the third tale. Because it carries the eerier first book alongside the gentler later stories, it sits at the top of the series' age range — the omnibus is pitched a little older than the individual titles — but the reading experience is the same luminous, art-led wonder throughout. A fitting capstone to a singular series and a natural gift.
Fit check
Right for your reader?
Where the series lands by age
- 1
- 3
- 5
- 7
- 9
- 11
- 13
- 15
- 17
- 19
- Best fit · 7–12
- Read aloud · 7–10
- Independent · 8–12
Reluctant-reader friendliness
High
Read-aloud quality
Workable
Adult crossover
High
Grows with the reader
Designed to
Sensitivity envelope
Moderate overall, and consistent.
Content notes
- Scary imagery
Per-arc breakdown
Where it sits
In conversation with other series.
About the author