U on Sunday’s Hot 19 for 2019: Jessica Townsend

Sunshine Coast author Jessica Townsend has been predicted to be the next J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter creator), ever since the publication of her first book Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow in 2017.

Sunshine Coast author Jessica Townsend has been predicted to be the next J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter creator), ever since the publication of her first book Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow in 2017.

JESSICA TOWNSEND

33, author

STAR FACTOR: Fantasy goes fantastic as her Nevermoor series is optioned by Hollywood

With Townsend’s second Nevermoor novel published last year,

the series has been optioned by Hollywood A-lister Drew Goddard and 20th Century Fox.

Townsend is currently bunkered down in her home at Caloundra, on a strict writing schedule. She hopes to have most of the third book about Morrigan, a powerful wundersmith (a kind of a magician) who learns to craft her powers at the Wundrous Society academy, finished by the end of this month. It is set for release later this year.

Townsend’s first Nevermoor novel has sold 130,000 copies in Australia alone.

It also won the 2018 ABIA for Book of the Year and Book of the Year for Younger Readers and the 2018 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Fiction.