Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow

There was a time, before the stories hit the big screen and the secret got out, where a small collection of avid book lovers fell in love with a little character called Harry Potter. Not everyone knew about the secret and when you read the books you got the opportunity to build the Wizarding World in your own imagination before the iconic faces of Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were assigned to the roles of Harry and Hermione. It was a magical time and one difficult to recreate and yet here I think Jessica Townsend may have done just that.

The Trials of Morrigan Crow, the first in her new series Nevermoor, is a children's fiction novel about 10 year old Morrigan who has been classed as a cursed child for her whole life and held accountable for everything that goes wrong in her home town. Morrigan also lives with the knowledge that on her eleventh birthday she will die because that is just what happens to cursed children. However, on the eve of her 11th birthday a stranger by the name of Jupiter North bursts into her world and helps her cheat death by magicking her away to the mysterious world of Nevermoor.

Nevermoor is a world full of unusual sights and sounds, a huge cat who can talk, a hotel where the rooms adapt to create the room you would love the most, Vampire Dwarf's and a strange society known as the Wundrous Society where each year children compete to join their ranks through completion of 4 unusual magical trials. Morrigan finds herself thrust into the trials for the Wundrous society with the help of her patron Jupiter but the road ahead will not be easy.

This book was something really very special, from the very first chapter it is full of magical innocence. The world Townsend creates in Nevermoor is full of colour and magic and amazing characters that you fall in love with. Morrigan is a wonderful lead character, she is a child who has been devoid of affection and love in her home life but finds warmth and friendship in Nevermoor's colourful characters. Her relationship with her patron Jupiter is one that will be full of mystery but you hold faith with Jupiter's belief in our heroine and his amazing strength to pull her through.

I flew through this book, I couldn't stop reading, each chapter is so full of new discoveries about the world of Nevermoor and gives you plenty of characters to cheer for and those you just distrust and dislike on sight plus with the mysery of the strange Mr Jones who keeps appearing and offering Morrigan a change to form an alliance with his mysterious boss Ezra Squall there is much to engage us plotwise.

Book 2 in this series is scheduled for release later this year and I cannot wait to read it. I have a feeling that like Harry Potter once this reaches the awareness of the general public it has the potential to become iconic.