“NEVERMOOR”, The Word On Everyone’s Lips

I was an intern at Hachette Australia when I first heard the word Nevermoor. The manuscript was being passed around the office with excitement. The first time someone told me I should read it, I was in the print room, binding some documents, and the Head of Sales (my now boss) asked if I had read it yet. When I said no, he promptly told me I needed to read it as soon as possible – it was going to be something incredible.

The first time I actually got the chance to read Nevermoor, it was a few months later – I had just gotten my job as Sales and Product Coordinator at Hachette, and was handed a proof copy of Nevermoor by my friends in the Children’s Department after I had been helping them mail out gorgeous hardback proofs to media and booksellers and was asked again if I had read this book. I was promptly handed a proof copy to read after admitting I was probably the last person at Hachette not to have read it.

I devoured it in about 48 hours.

 

Jessica Townsend, the 32-year-old wonder behind Nevermoor

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow is the debut novel from Jessica Townsend, and it has become a phenomenon well before its release. “Nevermoor” is probably the most used word at Hachette after “book”. Booksellers have been talking about Nevermoor for months. Fox bought the film rights nearly a year ago, and book nerds the world around have been eagerly awaiting the release of the book that has caused so much excitement.

Nevermoor is the story of Morrigan Crow, a young girl born on an unlucky day, and subsequently blamed for all local misfortunes. The curse also means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on Eventide. But, just before the worst is to happen, Morrigan is whisked away by a strange man called Jupiter North, who takes her to safety in a secret magical city called Nevermoor. In Nevermoor, Morrigan is put forward by Jupiter to contend for a place in the Wundrous Society – the city’s most prestigious organisation, but in order to join she must compete and succeed in four trials against other children, each bearing an extraordinary and magical talent. Morrigan, bewildered by it all, has no idea what her talent could possibly be. However, to stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good and avoid the death prescribed to her outside the city, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests.

It is hard to find the right words to describe how utterly brilliant this book is. Jessica Townsend has weaved the most magical world since Harry Potter, and made me fall in love with characters in a way I haven’t for a long time. I won’t lie – I have a bit of a crush on Jupiter North, even if I am not supposed to, but even more than that I love Morrigan and all she stands for. Morrigan is the kind of hero that defines the magic of children’s fiction, and one that I wish I had when I was a child myself.

Comparisons to the brilliance of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter are thrown about in regards to a lot of books, but rarely are they as true as when they are said about Nevermoor. Jessica Townsend has herself said she owes a lot to J.K. Rowling :

“I get this weird feeling that as a children’s author, I’m supposed to be coy and evasive about admitting Harry Potter as an influence. That even now, 20 years after the publication of The Philosopher’s Stone, I somehow ought to be denying the hippogriff in the room that is this massive literary touchstone. Pretending I wrote Nevermoor in a cultural vacuum.

Well, I didn’t. Nevermoor was influenced by everything I’ve ever read, watched and loved, and that absolutely includes Harry Potter. I’m part of the lucky generation that queued in bookstores at midnight for Order of the Phoenix after an agonising three-year wait. As a series, Harry Potter lit my imagination on fire and made me see the scope of world-building that was possible in children’s literature. I refuse to be dispassionate about something I love so much.”

– Jessica Townsend, ’20 years of Harry Potter: five local authors assess the cult of the boy wizard’, Sydney Morning Herald, June 16 2017

Jessica Townsend with a copy of the soon to be published Nevermoor

For me, it is impossible to read Nevermoor and not acknowledge Jessica’s paying tribute to Harry Potter, largely because reading Nevermoor for the first time felt incredibly like reading Harry Potter for the first time – full of magic and excitement and so much joy. Nevermoor makes you feel like a child again, in all the best ways. I keep comparing it to childhood favourites of mine – Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and Roald Dahl – because it feels like a classic right away. Children will grow up loving this book and its characters. Young girls will grow up looking to Morrigan as a role model the same way I grew up idolising Hermione Granger – and that makes me so incredibly happy.

I am incredibly lucky to have been a part of the community of people who have read Nevermoor before its release, and even luckier to be working with the team behind Nevermoor’s publication. Seeing how much love has gone into seeing this book flourish has been so wonderful, and it makes me even more excited to see Nevermoor go out into the wild and into the hands of children (and adults alike!). Books like this come around very rarely, and I am so glad that I have been able to see this book bring smiles, laughter and a spot of Wunder into the lives of everyone who has read it thus far. I can’t recommend this book enough, and when it is released in just over a week, I beg you to go and get your hands on a copy as soon as you can. You won’t regret it.

 

 

Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Lothian Children’s Books, RRP $16.99)  is available from October 10th 2017 in all good bookstores. As always, INWORDSANDINK encourages its readers to buy from and support their local independent bookstores and support independent press.

Please note that whilst I work for Hachette Australia, I was not in any way asked or obligated to write this review. All opinions expressed in this piece are my own unless expressly stated otherwise.

 

 

 

© Hayley New 2017