In a small town where nothing ever happens, everything is about to change: Jeremy Johnson Johnson’s life has begun to feel like a cruel fairy tale. He hears voices (“strange whisperings”) so the citizens in the small town of Never Better treat him like an oddity and an outcast. His mother takes a bite of a cake so delicious it’s rumored to be enchanted and runs away with another man. Jeremy’s heartsick father goes into his room and stays there unhappily ever after. Then the town’s coltish, copper-haired adventuress takes a bite of the enchanted cake and falls in love with the first person she sees: Jeremy. This would be a turn for the better anywhere but Never Better, where the Finder of Occasions—whose identity and evil intentions nobody knows—is watching and waiting, waiting and watching… Award-winning author Tom McNeal has crafted an enchanted and enchanting novel, a wholly original and addictive fairy tale that like the cake of Never Better will make you fall in love and take you far, far away.

About the author

Tom McNeal is a novelist and the author of critically acclaimed and widely anthologized short stories. His novel, Goodnight, Nebraska, won the James A. Mitchener Memorial Prize and the California Book Award for Fiction. Tom has written multiple young adult novels with his wife, Laura McNeal. Laura taught middle school and high school English before becoming a novelist and journalist. Their novel, Crooked, was the winner of the California Book Award for Juvenile Literature and an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults. Zipped is the winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children’s Literature.Their website is www.mcnealbooks.com.

*JAMES A. MITCHENER MEMORIAL PRIZE WINNER!
*CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION WINNER!

Praise for Far, Far Away:

“In addition to recounting pieces from the Grimms’ stories, McNeal—in his first solo novel for teens—weaves in fantastical fairy-tale details into this inventive and deeply poignant narrative, creating a world that hovers between realism and enchantment. Jacob’s tale is menacing, at times terrifying, and often strange—much like the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel, and rife with allusions to Grimm Brothers’ tales, this is a masterful story of outcasts, the power of faith, and the triumph of good over evil. McNeal’s deft touch extends to the characterizations, where the ritual speech of traditional tales (‘Listen, if you will’) establishes Jacob’s phantasmagoric presence amid the modernist American West. There are moments of horror (as there were in Grimm Brothers’ original tales), but they are accomplished through the power of suggestion. Details aplenty about Jacob and his famous sibling make this a fiction connector to both fairy tales and Grimm biographies too.”
—Booklist

“McNeal spins a tale fluctuating from whimsy to macabre in such a beguiling voice that—like Hansel and Gretel—readers won’t realize they’re enmeshed in his dangerous seduction until it’s too late. /…/ When is a bully not so bad? Where’s the line between justifiable grief and parental neglect? Can an older man love a teenager in a way that’s not creepy? How do stories nourish us? At what point do they stifle us? All these questions, and many more, are raised in this folklore-inflected, adventurous, romantic fantasy. Whether readers connect more deeply with the suspense, the magical elements, or the gloriously improbable love story, they will come away with a lingering taste of enchantment.”
—School Library Journal 

“McNeal superbly and elegantly enfolds those stories’ essence and depth into plot, setting, and characters; archetypal figures and situations glimmer through McNeal’s small-town American cast like tantalizing clues in a novel that becomes ever darker even as it sparkles with the dignified, affectionate voice of its ghostly narrator.”
—The Horn Book Review 

“Enchanting, romantic, and tinged with terror, this modern story subtly weaves the haunting essentials of the fairy-tale tradition into a fascinating and beautifully written homage to its source material.”
—The Bulletin 
 

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