Front cover of an Australian edition of Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow is the first book in the Nevermoor series of fantasy novels and the debut novel of Australian author Jessica Townsend. It was first published in October 2017.
Plot[]
Morrigan Crow was born on the unluckiest day of the Age. As a cursed child she brings misfortune to anyone she meets and is blamed for abnormal weather and heartattacks down to someone tripping on a shoelace. Morrigan has no friends, her family hates or ignores her, and the house staff are scared of her. The biggest problem of being a cursed child goes beyond being blamed for everything that goes wrong, however. The curse means that all children born on the last day of an Age (called Eventide) are doomed to die on the next Eventide. And Eventide has arrived a year early.
Morrigan awaits her death surrounded by her family who seem anxious for their lives to become normal. However, Morrigan is saved by a stranger named Jupiter North who has offered to become her patron at the elite Wundrous Society in Nevermoor. He spirits her away from her previous life to the magical city of Nevermoor in a mysterious land, allowing Morrigan to escape her death. Once in Nevermoor, Morrigan finds out that she must compete to claim a spot into the Wundrous Society's prestigious organization. She must fight her way through four difficult trials with hundreds of other children, each of which have a special talent which allows them to compete. If Morrigan cannot make it through the trials, she'll have to leave the city and people she has come to love and meet her fate.
Awards[]
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow has won numerous awards. These include:
- Aurealis Awards, Best Children's Fiction - 2017
- Dymocks Book of the Year - 2018
- QBD Children's Book of the Year - 2018
- Australian Book Industry Awards, Book of the Year - 2018
- Australian Book Industry Awards, Book of the Year for Younger Children - 2018
- Indie Book Awards, Book of the Year - 2018
- Indie Book Awards, Children's Category - 2018
- Australian Booksellers Association Awards, Nielsen Booksellers' Choice Award - 2018
- Waterstones Children's Book Prize (UK), Younger Fiction - 2018
- Cybils Award - Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction - 2018
- West Australian Young Readers' Book Award, Younger Readers - 2019
- Adelaide Festival Awards, Premier's Award (Best Overall Published Work) - 2020
- Adelaide Festival Awards, Children's Literature Award - 2020