I purchased this beauty a little while ago and have been lovingly looking at it on my book pile ever since.  I decided that my summer holiday would be the perfect time to crack open the cover (very carefully!) and enter the wonderous world of Nevermoor.

Morrigan Crow is the only daughter of Chancellor Corvus Crow, she is eleven-years-old and she is a cursed child. All misfortunes which occur in Jackalfax are attributed to her. Morrigan is supposed to die on Eventide night.

Due to a rather surprising twist of fate, Morrigan is whisked away by the charismatic, flame-haired Jupiter North to the top-secret city of Nevermoor.  There, she is offered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the mysterious Wundrous Society –  a place where Morrigan will find magic and lifelong friends.

All she has to do is pass four fiendish tasks, designed to separate out the candidates into the brilliant and the truly exceptional.  The final task is designed to reveal Morrigan’s as yet undiscovered ‘knack.’

Will she finally escape the curse? Does she even have a ‘knack’? And what is Jupiter hiding from her?

I think the fact I read this book over the course of a day tells you something about how much I enjoyed it! The prologue sets the tone beautifully and has the reader immediately wanting to find out just what has been going on.

You can’t help but root for the initially spiky and sarcastic Morrigan as she struggles to accept responsibility for all the unfortunate events that happen around her, and tries not to be scared about her impending fate. Her family is truly horrible and seem happy about the prospect of her dying so they can all move on with their lives and forget she even existed.

When Morrigan is whisked away to Nevermoor, her world becomes sprinkled with a liberal amount of magic.  Although the basic outline of the district is described in this book, I have the feeling there’s a lot more to come in subsequent stories. There are plenty of mysteries simmering below the surface yet to be explored.

To counterbalance all the magic and wonder, there are plenty of dark and creepy moments to keep readers on the edge of their seats as they meet fierce shadow wolves and learn the truth about the legend of the much-feared Wundersmith.

A fantastic read which leaves you with as many questions as answers, and desperately waiting for the next instalment to be published.

Library Girl.