The Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend has been one of my favorites since I listened to the 1st book as an audiobook in a long car ride with my family a few years ago. The Nevermoor series is currently 3 books, soon to be 4 in October 2022, but is probably going to end up as 6 to 9 books. This is a fantasy, adventure, and mystery series great for 9+ readers.
The first book, and the best, in my opinion, is Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow. It is about 11 year old Morrigan Crow, the daughter of the chancellor of Jacklefax, the main city of the capital state of the Wintersea Republic. Morrigan’s mother is gone, for reason’s not explained in the book, and she lives with her father Corvus, her grandmother Ornella, and her stepmother Ivy in Crow Manor. But, Morrigan is cursed. She was born on Eventide, the worst day of the year for a child to be born. Cursed children are the blame for all the problems in the Republic, but that’s not the worst part. If a child is born on Eventide, they are doomed to die on their 12th birthday, the next Eventide (Eventide usually comes around every 12 years and is the last day of an Age).
SPOILER BELOW
But, as (spoiler alert)! eventide comes a year early and Morrigan is awaiting her fate she is rescued from the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow by Jupiter North an ecstatic, high-energy, ginger man who is also her new patron. She is smuggled into Nevermoor, a place unknown by most people in the Republic, put in the rigorous trials for the Wundrous Society, a school and society for only the most gifted and talented people in Nevermoor, and works to discover who she really is.
The sequels to this book are Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow and Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow.
I greatly enjoyed this book and would give it 5 stars. Its plot is twisting, turning, and overall unexpected making this an even greater book.