It was a pleasure to be invited to a High Tea party recently to meet Jessica Townsend. She is on a whirlwind tour of the world to promote her hugely successful debut fantasy novel Nevermoor which has netted her a six-figure deal. The movie rights have also been snapped up by 20th Century Fox.
Jessica was bubbly and friendly and admitted she is still on cloud nine and can hardly believe in her good fortune. The ten years she spent writing her book, starting when she was just 18 years old, has more than paid off! She divulged that the next book in the series is almost finished and should be with the publisher soon. So we can already start to look forward to what promises to be a long series
She was so passionate about the art of writing and so approachable and happy to answer questions that I am sure that the children at the schools she also visited that day would have adored her and seen her as a great role model.
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow has been hailed as a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter.
Eleven-year-old Morrigan is a cursed child. This is why she is blamed for killing the kitchen cat, for the death of a local man from a heart attack, for the fire damage to a local school and for causing a lady to break her hip. Every local calamity must be her fault! She thinks this is really unfair but must still write endless apology letters.
To her politician father, who is the Chancellor of Great Wolacre and has to keep paying out compensation money, she is a constant source of embarrassment and a financial burden.
Unloved and unwanted, her life could not be bleaker. Unlike other young girls of her age, she has absolutely nothing to look forward to as she already knows that she is doomed to die at Midnight when Eventide comes. And this year it’s coming even earlier than usual.
But at the last moment, an eccentric stranger called Jupiter North comes to the rescue and whisks her away from ‘The Smoke and Shadow’ (a bunch of vicious hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback) to the magical city of Nevermoor. This city is a fantastical reimagining of the London Jessica first experienced as a twenty-year-old.
Jupiter is a member of the esteemed Wundrous Society. He hopes Morrigan will be able to join it. But to be accepted she must compete against many other children and pass some dangerous and difficult trials. The stakes are high. If she fails she can be evicted from Nevermoor by the nasty Inspector Flintlock for being an illegal citizen. And that’s the last thing that Morrigan, who has formed a close friendship with a dragon rider and knows what fate would await her back home, would want.
Would my granddaughter enjoy Nevermoor or would it be too scary? I tested the water by telling her the first part of the story of how Morrigan, a cursed child is doomed to die young. And how, at the appointed date, a pack of hounds, with sharp yellow teeth and fiery eyes and swirling smoky fur as black as pitch were ready to pounce.
“Stop Grandma! You’re doing a spoiler!” She groaned
“Sorry, just checking,” I say, trying to sound remorseful.
“No worries,” she assured me. ”Tons of people died in the Harry Potter series and they are some of my favourite books.”
I don’t get a chance to tell her that Morrigan escapes unhurt and to entice her to read it by describing Morrigan’s magical new bedroom on the fourth floor of Hotel Deucalion. Its size and shape keeps changing and something new and brilliant mysteriously appears like a black leather armchair shaped like an octopus that curls its tentacles around her while she reads.
Or to mention that although dark things do happen there is also plenty of entertainment and fun to be had in Nevermore. At the Trolloseum (for those who love violence) there is a troll fight every Saturday, centaur roller derby Thursday nights, zombie paintball every second Friday, unicorn jousting at Christmas and a dragon riding tournament in June,
Because my granddaughter had already tucked Nevermoor under her arm and taken it upstairs to her bedroom ready to step boldly into the magical world Jessica has created before going to sleep. My prediction is that she will enjoy reading it every bit as much as I did.
Title: Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow. By Jessica Townsend. Publisher Hachette RRP $19.99.
Reviews by Lyn Potter
Parent and grandparent, Avid traveller, writer & passionate home cook
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