Readers of Vancouver author and graphic artist Barbara Hodgson have come to approach each new book with the eager anticipation of a child unwrapping a gift: what wonders will it hold? What beauty will it reveal?

Hodgson’s latest illustrated novel, Hippolyte’s Island, is satisfyingly engaging. With her tale of contemporary adventurer Hippolyte Webb shaking off his leaky-condo ennui and setting off to verify the existence of the Auroras, a mysterious group of islands in the South Atlantic that have disappeared from all but the oldest of maps, Hodgson gives her imagination free rein. Webb’s account rivals turn-of-the-20th-century exploits for sheer adventure, suspense, and research. With Webb’s return to civilization, and his attempts to convince a skeptical editor of the truth of his travels (and rescue his proposed book deal), the book delicately balances research and history with publishing insider-talk and an unusual relationship between Webb and his reluctant editor.

While the term “illustrated novel” may be technically accurate, the marriage of words and images in Hippolyte’s Island is somewhat disappointing. The many illustrations are enigmatic and compelling – botanical drawings and plates, maps, fragments of logs – but there simply aren’t enough of them. Nor is the graphic element integral to the text. One can easily imagine Hippolyte’s Island as a regular novel, unlike the author’s previous works, where keys to plot and character were cunningly interwoven in the illustrations, requiring significant attention and involvement from the reader. It would have been enthralling to read Webb’s complete logs in graphic form, or to read the antique accounts of the Auroras in facsimiles of their original forms.

This is a minor criticism, as Hodgson’s prose is vivid and picturesque in its own right. Webb is a complex (and frequently unlikable) character, and most readers will be drawn into his obsession with finding one of the planet’s last unfound places.