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JESSICA TOWNSEND lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. She was a copywriter for eight years, and was once the editor of a children's wildlife magazine for Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow is her first novel.
Fearsome and funny and original, it's requisite reading for fantasy lovers of all ages. - Libby Hathorn, CBCA Award-winning author of ThunderwithAn extraordinary story full of magics great and small, from the Hotel Deucalion to the Magnificat... Townsend has created a book of wunders. In Morrigan Crow I've found a heroine I'm willing to step boldly after, and follow her wherever her adventure takes her next. - Kiran Millwood-Hargrave, author of The Girl of Ink and StarsJessica Townsend's Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow is more than just a spectacular debut. Exciting, charming, and wonderfully imagined, it's the sort of delightful grand adventure destined to be many a reader's favorite book....a compulsively readable romp that fans of 'Harry Potter', Terry Pratchett or Studio Ghibli will gobble up. - Books + PublishingNevermoor is brimming over with imagination and fun. Morrigan is a wonderful heroine - dark, moody, and wry - and the unfairness of her situation makes her very easy to empathise with. The story gallops along, and the setting is wonderfully vivid ... A wonderfully assured debut from a young Australian author, Nevermoor sparkles with zest, wit and inventiveness. - Kate Forsyth, author of The Impossible Quest seriesFrom the first sentence of Chapter One, The kitchen cat was dead, and Morrigan was to blame , we are draw
A lot of hype behind this one - is it the new Harry Potter? Etc etc and so on.
The answer... ... Maybe.
Time will tell.
It's not quite perfect. Feels written for slightly younger audience and is therefore slightly less accessible for and adult. Slightly less believable. I mean really, Harry Potter should never have worked. For adults I mean. But it's clever and we all love a good mystery. Perhaps Nevermoor has not quite the misdirection of HP. There's a little something missing but that's really, only based on a caparison to one of the biggest and best series that ever was. Bit unfair really.
So, does it stand up all by itself as a decent magical book for younger readers?
Yes. Quite.
It’s charming, first off. There's some super cool, wonderful, magical ideas.
The main character is likable, and you bond with her VERY easily and early. There are a few moments where she's a bit... silly, maybe, but i had that in HP too - I just didn't notice it so much. A few instances of "just tell him this or just ask that!" that can ... urk you out of the world. But again, I'm a bit grown up.
The world is mostly, a believable, wonderful, magical, charming place. It's is a place you'd like to spend time. There's a few ideas i'd like to see fleshed out a bit more, but it is only book one.
What else? Would I recommend this for younger readers who are not jaded, old, crabby, tired, well-read, bookseller, old-men bastards, that mainly read Grim-dark choc full of swearing, blood and dark humour?
YES - a big resounding yes with sparkly bells on. Twinkly bells that change colour depending on how you’re feeling.
Will I be lining up for book two, potentially with a whole screaming, bubbly gaggle of prepubescent girls?
Yes - but I’ll be frowning.
I recommend this to anyone really. Just leave off with the unattainable comparisons to HP and enjoy this little beauty for what it is. Because it IS something special.
-Craig
