The Mossheart's Promise

Mossheart #1

by Rebecca Mix, Caitlin Kelly (Reader)

From New York Times bestselling YA author Rebecca Mix comes the first book in a breathtaking middle grade fantasy duology about a young fairy who has always lived in her heroic grandmother’s shadow but now must step up and embark on a quest to save her mother from the ever-creeping mold overtaking their world. Perfect for readers who loved Brandon Mull's Fablehaven, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, and Endling: The Last by Katherine Applegate.

The mold takes all.

Twelve-year-old fairy Canary Mossheart knows this better than most. A few years ago, the mold took her papa, and even her famous, former-chosen-one Gran never found a cure. So when Ary's beloved mama falls ill, Ary decides it’s taken enough. Armed with only a bucket and a prayer, she sneaks out to find a magical, underground lake whose healing waters are straight out of Gran’s adventures.

But when Ary gets there, the lake’s bone dry, and instead of healing waters, she finds a terrifying secret: Her entire world is actually trapped inside a giant terrarium—one they were meant to leave centuries ago. Worse, Gran knew and hid the truth, dooming Ary and her generation to a dying, rotting world.

Now, allied with only her doomsday-obsessed frenemy, a timid pill bug, and a particularly grumpy newt, Ary has one week to unravel the clues and find a way out of the terrarium—or they’ll be trapped for good. .

Genres: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT, Queer, Fiction, Childrens

1 pages, Audio CD

First published October 1, 2023

About the author

new york times bestselling jasmine tea enthusiast and author of weird magical books. I don't use this account anymore, but you can find me here:

rebeccamix on tumblr
mix.becca on insta
mixbecca on tiktok

Reviews

[Rebecca Mix · Rating 5 out of 5]

i literally wrote a book about a girl's world being destroyed by mold and then got black mold poisoning. the universe said, "fine, method act it." this is the weirdest book i have ever written. let's GOOOO

[Fanna]

16.01.2022 set in a rotting terrarium full of fairies. how can you say no to this.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becca let me read a bit of an early version of this, and one of my first thoughts when I finished was how angry I was I couldn't go straight to Goodreads to give it five stars. SO I'M VERY VERY HAPPY TO BE GIVING IT FIVE STARS RIGHT NOW.

This book made 12 year old Chloe's heart sing, and completely captivated 20 year old Chloe. Think the Tinkerbell movies meets The City Of Ember meets Gregor The Overlander meets a whole lot of mold. A story that brilliantly blends creepy with hope, about the fear and anger that comes when the generation that was supposed to protect you, didn't. Stunning writing, jaw dropping imagery, it's a middle grade that's going to take over the world, and I am very much looking forward to seeing that happen.

[Rhiannon Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is genuinely a beautiful touching story about trauma, deceitful heroes, biting off too much to handle, and making deals with giant lizard war criminals. Congrats Becca on another amazing, beautiful book about messy girls with strange magic, I can’t wait to revisit Ary’s story and see it come to the beautiful, traumatic, firework finale you’ve given it.

[Lizzy S]

will no longer be stepping on bugs, small critters, things with wings, etc.

[Autumn · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 52% in to an enjoyable MIDDLE grade book and lesbianism is introduced. I read another review and it seems to come up again so I’m bailing on this one. Disappointing that relationships were even needed to be brought into a book for middle schoolers.

[Lovely Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley, Harpercollins Childrens Books and Rebecca Mix for providing me with a copy of A Mossheart's Promise for review.

4.5/5 rounded up - Available 5 September 2023

This is an outstanding middle grade fantasy book. I loved it. Stick with me here, it is as if Mix went to a writing class/group and the writing prompt was 'terrarium fantasy' and BAM! A Mossheart's Promise was born.

Canary is brilliant. She is the perfect MG MC with a nice blend between the Chosen One and the Reluctant Hero tropes. I always believed in her and I always wanted her to succeed just because of the kindness that she kept throughout her journey.

The ragtag mix of friends/found family trope is also beautiful. I loved what each side character brought along and the journey that each of them took with our MC, Ary.

I also think that we need to highlight how the queerness of this story is presented. The normality of heterosexual attraction for tween characters is rampant throughout sooooo much MG and young readers material. This story presents the same level of 'MC stunned by beautiful/hot/cute character' as any heterosexual literature but just does it beautifully in a way that allows a young queer reader to have their love interest moment like everyone else. There is no discussion or exploration as to whether homophobia exists in this fantasy world and so I will choose to believe that it doesn't :)

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique, adventurous, fun, cute, sarcastic, raw. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an adult and know I would have loved it as a kid!

A great portion of why I loved this book was the nostalgia. I had a thing for these types of stories as a kid, the world-within-a-world, hidden-away-people, remnant-of-humanity-that-doesn’t-know-they-were-hidden-away-to-preserve-life kinds of books. Think The City of Ember, or the lesser-known Atherton series. I loved them! So, it was no surprise that The Mossheart’s Promise swept me in and gave me all the same feelings of discovery and hope and perseverance.

Beyond that, Mix did something in this story that I haven’t seen in a Middle Grade before. She emphasized that the main character, Ary, a twelve year old, was NOT the hero. Or rather, that the responsibility to make all the big decisions and lead the fairies and save the world was not on Ary’s shoulders.

And aside from being realistic, I found it beautiful. Did I like to read stories as a kid about other kids being heroic? Sure. But I also know that there are kids who will resonate so much stronger with The Mosshearts Promise. The kids who are holding too much, who are hurting, alone, and feel responsible for things that honestly, they shouldn’t have to be thinking about at their age. I hope this story finds those kids and reminds them that they SHOULD have someone to rely on. That while they’re doing the best they can with this problem so much bigger than them, it's okay if they’re scared and they don’t want that burden – because they shouldn’t have to have it.

There's also a focus on inheriting broken things, which I know a lot of my generation will relate to. There's conversation around Ary's Gran, about how Ary loves her, but she comes to realize that she doesn't know if she likes who her Gran is or the choices her Gran made - that maturing moment where Ary is confident in how to make the right decisions, even if her loved ones have not. The complexity of topics and heart-wrenching feelings and situations Ary finds herself handling was both refreshing and sobering.

Beyond all these deeper themes, Ary and her ragtag crew stole my heart. From dry, sarcastic, slightly oblivious Owl; to lovable and loyal Shrimp; to wounded and grieving and sharp and reluctantly kind Sootflank. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling through the Gloom, the Underground, and meeting all sorts of likeable and mean creatures. I was rooting for Ary to find the way out of the terrarium and allow the folk (and bugs!) to escape the smothering mold.

What a story! The ending is not a cliffhanger, but there is definitely more to be explored. I can't wait for the second half of Ary's story, and I will be recommending The Mossheart's Promise all along the way!

Thank you to Netgalley and HaperCollins Children's Books for the free, advanced ebook so that I might provide an honest review!
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**Parent's Guide: some scary situations where Ary and her friends are facing down bugs that want to hurt them. Fires are started several times, and Ary has to escape the smoke and flame. Other creatures are mentioned as having been caught by the flames. Mold infects people from the inside and we see this in some Folk/ants. Ary consistently shows kindness to even her "enemies" and repeats that she doesn't want to hurt others (but does throw a rock/etc a couple times as self-defense). There's allusions that others have gone in to the Underground and not returned & allusions that there have been wars with the newts that have caused burn scars on folk. A great amount of time is spent in the dark/near dark.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

unique world but didn’t really add much to this genre. all the characters were like eating chalk.

[norah · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️=4.5 | 😘=1 | 🤬=1 | ⚔️=2.5 | 😭=0.5 | 10/11+

thoughts: this was so so so cute and so emotional 😭 the found family vibes and the characters were adorable and the climate change metaphor was subtle enough that I didn't find it obnoxious, especially because of how crucial the world building and environment is to the story. I'm interested to see how the sequel will work since the terrarium was, like, the whole point/main conflict of book one, so I'm not sure what they're supposed to do now that they've broken out. anyway. this was cute.

[Kae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is at the top of my list of favorite books I've read this year so far. It's one of those reads that you keep thinking about after putting it down and you both HAVE to finish it but you also don't want it to end.
The writing kept me on the edge of my seat the entire adventure and the world-building and lore had me wanting more from this universe!
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this story and will be recommending it to my friends!

[Steph Faye · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had so much promise but lagged a bit halfway through, plus I'm not a fan of inuendos written that are frankly to mature for the audience in this age group. I miss middle grade books that allowed your imagination to bloom and kept your innocence in place. Kids should have plenty of time to be kids! Time passes so quickly, and it's just a shame that these authors feel the need to try and cut that short with unnecessary content. It's really that simple.

[Sam Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC review:

I would have devoured this book as a kid--and I loved it now as an adult. It's great for all ages, full of magic, secrets, drama. I was thoroughly invested in Ary Mossheart's journey, reconciling the mistakes her gran made as the first Mossheart hero of Terra, and doing what her gran couldn't--save the people from the terrarium they were trapped in! IT'S SO GOOD!

[Emma Clemons · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need everyone to know i would die for shrimp and this was just so so so beautiful

[Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Middle grade emotions are just something else. Themes of this book include generational trauma, choosing yourself, the importance of diversity, and exploration. Everyone's been comparing this to The City of Ember and Gregor the Overlander, and you can't really get a better comparison than that.

What I liked:
- Mold and bugs are something we can all relate to. Our world is falling apart, but it's on a slower scale than Ary's. This story takes fears of rotting that pervade everyday life and make it the end of the world in such a fantastic way.
- There were fantasy elements, but they weren't explained much, which kept the story moving, and it really worked for me.
- Found family!
- Stories about ex-chosen ones are kind of having a moment, and combining that with the strange relationship with grandparents is absolutely brilliant.

What I had mixed feelings about:
- It's just a little too close to both its influences. The first half is The City of Ember with fairies, and the second half is Gregor the Overlander if he failed and had a granddaughter.
- Genocide in middle grade books is always a tough topic to wrangle.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Megan Strang · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mossheart’s Promise is a classic quest with an ordinary hero and her misfit band of friends. The world that Rebecca creates is so incredibly vast and the reader can feel the darkness and isolation of the Underground and the creepy crawlies of the earwigs, ants, and other bugs that Ary and her friends encounter.

It has an element of the fantastical and magical but is still very much a story about real themes of society, family, and relationships. So I think it would appeal to readers who don’t normally read fantasy or magic. I think it’s probably for an older middle-grade reader, as there are lots of characters and plot points. And it’s definitely a story that will appeal to parents and other adults, and I think there are lots of themes that will resonate at a tween/teen level, and then resonate in even more ways for adults. It’d be a great novel to teach responsibility, family and generational dynamics, and caring for Earth.

[Shanshad Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I'm a bit of a middle grade fantasy cynic when it comes to quest fantasies involving dying worlds and prophecies. I've read so many. And so many painfully bad ones. Badly written, badly executed . . .and so many okay ones that danced all the right steps but never rose beyond that.
So it's a bit of giddy delight when something in this subset of fantasy can pick me up and carry me blithely along on a quest adventure. It's about fairies, but it's no pretty fairy story. There's grimness, sacrifice and pain. It's about prophecies, but also about questers gone wrong, betrayal and choices. It's about a tiny world of bugs and folk inside a terrarium and yet it opens into an entire story that feels far bigger.
The Mossheart's Promise is out in September. I just finished reading it and still feel kinda giddy. Wow. It's soooo nice when that happens.

[Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Ahh this is so clever! I've wanted to read it ever since seeing the author's reels.

It's very much City of Ember meets a softer Underlamd Chronicles, and I absolutely love the setting. However, I think what held this back for me was HOW STRONG the parallels to City of Ember were - intentional or not, I couldn't stop comparing the two. I also had a hard time telling how large everyone was in proportion to each other.

The ending did have a cool twist I really wasn't expecting, though, that felt very different from Ember/Underland, so I'll definitely want to read the sequel.

Edit to add: I was going through the author's Instagram and I was not imagining the Underland influences I saw! I knew the Temp/Shrimp, newt/Ripred, ants, underground tunnels, etc., was a coincidence 😁

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows a pretty prototypical YA hero format. Young girl goes on a quest to save her family and has to battle things bigger than she expected to save the world. Where it lost me was the ending. I expected it to have a bigger “So what?” at the end. I didn’t feel like I got the ending or resolution that I wanted. Based on how the world in the book is dying, I also expected a different kind of ending, and felt a bit let down by how it was written. It was cute and enjoyable and easy to read, but left me feeling underwhelmed at the end.

[Sarah Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE MOSSHEART'S PROMISE is both incredibly angry and heartbreakingly tender; it's an exploration of bravery, legacy, and what it means to inherit a dying world from the ones who were meant to protect us. I loved it so so much and I cannot wait to see where Ary goes next.

[Mariah · Rating 1 out of 5]

The City of Ember is one of my all time favorite books. Therefore, a book that explicitly draws attention to its similarity to it is going to face heavy scrutiny from me. I normally try to avoid comparing books with the same concept because in general I don’t think it’s fair to allow some other totally unrelated media affect my perception of something else. I can’t avoid it on some level, of course, because it’s subconscious and no one is immune to bias. Nevertheless, I do make a concentrated effort to separate the two things.

However, Rebecca Mix actively invites the comparison by utilizing a quote from the City of Ember at the very beginning of the story. So I spent the whole time unable to stop thinking about how much Mossheart’s Promise failed to live up to it.

It’s an interesting concept, but over time I was struck by how barren the world was. The City of Ember takes place in the city. Lina and Doon explore much of it in their pursuit of the truth. Ary and Owl just continuously trek across the same empty, dark tunnels because the terrarium is so close to death that most of the society has ultimately died out. While the explanation makes sense it made for a boring journey as there were no places of note for the characters to visit. Even as I reflect on the story now months later I can only recall the last place because it was the first time the story actually had a location that was not an empty cavern after leaving the Terra.

The writing is extremely repetitive. The author relied heavily on telling the reader what Ary was feeling via the third person limited point of view rather than allowing actions or dialogue to demonstrate within the context of the narrative. The result was that I felt constantly barraged by the same three sentiments of how Ary doesn’t feel like a hero, might not be the right hero, and maybe the world needs a different kind of hero.

I can understand Ary feels insecure without Ary reflecting on how inept she feels on every other page. By the end, I didn’t feel like Ary had emerged as a hero in her own right because it had the adverse effect of making me doubt her after being inundated so long by how incapable she was. Like, why should I believe in Ary when the author seems to be going out of her way to convince me she’s ill-prepared?

I believed in her at first, but as the story progressed being told repeatedly about her supposed inadequacies made me turn on her out of sheer exhaustion - yes, Ary I guess you're right, you are silly, and ridiculous, and weak. There, now that I've agreed, can you stop talking about it? Once you notice the pattern, it's impossible to ignore.

A new character that clearly is meant to be Ary’s love interest is introduced on page 256 and I was immediately annoyed at how quickly Ary grew to like her because it was adjacent insta love. Yes, the two didn’t end up in love by the end of the book, but it was obvious that the friendship developed at a more rapid rate than it should have because the two are meant to be paired up eventually. I wish the romance angle had been left out entirely in favor of creating a foundation for a genuine friendship first.

In City of Ember, you could ship Lina and Doon if you chose, but there is no confirmation whatsoever of romantic feelings in any of the books. It’s just confirmed that the two end up together as part of a kind of flashforward in The Diamond of Darkhold. Yet, I was fine with this because the two had such a strong bond for three books I found it completely reasonable that they do ultimately end up together romantically in the future.

This actually is why I largely have abandoned YA the past couple of years. Logic or reasonable progression often goes out the window in order to force a tepid relationship. I was disappointed to have it pop up in this middle grade book when for the most part middle grade is very good about avoiding this trap.

Things could have been so different overall, if this book was more about the kids - including Briar - from the beginning traveling on their own. A lot of this journey felt guided by an outside adult figure rather than figuring anything out on their own. Lina and Doon were only able to trust one another. And through their smarts, ingenuity and investigation were able to solve a puzzle that was literally ripped into pieces.

Ary, Owl, and eventually Briar were never placed in a position where anything had to be deciphered by way of clues or riddles or anything. The trip felt so lackluster because it lacked any sort of pizzazz to break up the monotony of simply going to another group of insect creatures’ land who are supposed to know the next place to go. Broadly, it’s mostly a series of protracted conversations.

The twist about why Gran doomed everyone was immediately clear. I obviously can not speak to whether or not the intended demographic could come to this conclusion, but I thought the story would have been a lot more interesting if Gran was actually just an outright villain who sacrificed her friends for glory and her karma was the slow destruction of her community because she was a young hotshot who made the wrong call out of arrogance. Given how little sense it made for Gran to make that decision given what we knew of her, I think it’s very likely a kid could have easily twigged to there being more to the story. That’s a basic storytelling trope so it’s clearly intentionally set-up for the reader to question the prevailing narrative about Gran. I just wish that the answer had not been the most obvious conclusion.

The Mossheart’s Promise is not necessarily a bad book, but I finished it feeling like my time was wasted. If it had simply been shorter that would have cleaned it up a lot since there would be far less ‘dead air’. The City of Ember tells a much fuller, dynamic story in under 300 pages versus Mossheart’s four hundred thirty two.

If you’re jonesing for a story of this kind I (obviously) highly recommend The City Of Ember. If you’ve already read The City of Ember and are looking for a similar vibe, I say only pick up The Mossheart’s Promise if you're capable of tempering your expectations accordingly.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this story on a whim primarily because the ebook was immediately available for check-out on Libby while I was trapped at home by ice and snow. I wish I’d read it much sooner. I’ve been waiting years for another book that felt like City of Ember, and here it was: City of Ember with fairies, set in a terrarium!! As someone who was obsessed with roly-polies as a child and is obsessed with indoor gardening as an adult, this book filled a hole in my heart I didn’t even know was there. It was creative and courageous and compassionate. I loved reading it, look forward to re-reading it the way I do with a long list of my middle-grade favorites, and can’t wait to read the sequel!

My mom is a school librarian, and she immediately added this book to her wish list cart after I told her about it! She said there’s a group of kids who build fairy houses by a tree at recess who would love a book like this. I hope more people read it and it gets more attention and publicity, because it deserves it!

[Yamini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This is said to be the 1st book in a duology, but the book does not end on a cliffhanger. Hence, can be picked as a standalone read too.

The story of a 12-year-old fairy who has been chiefly overshadowed all her life by the past good deeds of her Grandmother. And when doomsday arrives people expect her to step in and save their world. Only, if she knew where even to get started.

The peculiar list of characters (owl, shrimp, ants, caterpillars, n more) has undoubtedly received a few eyebrow-raising moments from me. The details of the world were wonderfully created n which may result in a couple of fan art too. What I did, however, miss was that pull. I was not reaching out to read this unless I consciously choose to pick it. So I did feel a gap in the story pulls for my case.

Thanks @this_is_edelweiss @mix.becca and @harpercollins for the Digital ARC

Genre: #magic #fantasy #middlegrade
Rating: 3.5/5 ⭐️

[pourquoiii · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to love the Disney Fairies books so much when I was younger and have been looking for similar stories ever since. Enter: The Mossheart’s Promise! Still YA but incorporates slightly more complex themes of found family and a classic hero’s journey that made it enjoyable to read as an adult (loving any fairy and cute little world content also helps). This was a genuinely wholesome tale that tugged on my heartstrings and is now making me yearn for spring and adventure.

ALSO incredibly impressed by the fact that I got sucked into this fairy world only to realize halfway through how much it reflects the generational trauma and environmental crisis that is currently running rampant in our real world. Big “oh shit” moment for me ngl

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book for those people that loved Spiderwick Chronicles when they were little LOL; it's also for the people who wonder, "gee, what's going on in the world of my houseplant?" No one? Hmm, yeah, me neither LOL! But it's a nice and cozy and sweet read about the cost of heroism and the damage we have to repair from the mistakes our ancestors make but the love and support that still exists between us. I was a big fan! Highly recommend reading it in the sun while listening to Cottagecore music lol!

[Casey ⚧ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this book not knowing much of what was going on but absolutely enthralled by a small world in a terrarium. I finished it crying. This book is so good and the world is so incredibly vivid. The characters are so lifelike and the way they're written makes them so, so human. Rebecca Mix is unbelievably skilled in her craft and I've recommended this book to anyone who'll listen.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something so magical about this book and I long to read more about their new journey into the world beyond. Becca somehow wrote my new favorite character every time someone was introduced and I know I’ll be reading this book over for years to come.

[Ace Swervey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book for inspiration on a work of my own regarding large bug companion characters and I closed this book a little misty-eyed and more than a little eager for the sequel. Younger me would have eaten this book the hell UP oh my GOD

[Therearenobadbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good journey and coming-of-age story fighting for a place to belong physically but also psychologically. I liked their world and the angst of trying to save it. The slow pace and slow start always focus on the main character's doubts and comparisons to her grandmother. Not a binged fast pace story. With all the doubts and steps back, at a point, I wanted to read about the grandmother's journey when she was young instead. It takes a lot of time and chapters for the main character to take control of her story and takes on her journey.

3.5 stars. Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the opportunity to give my honest opinion.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: sapphic mc & side characters