House of Many Ways. Diana Wynne Jones

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      Dear Reader,

      Here is my new book, House of Many Ways, which I hope you will enjoy. It is a sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air, set in the world where such things as seven-league boots and flying carpets are not only possible but real. For this one we move to the mountainous kingdom of High Norland, where the elderly King and his almost equally elderly daughter are busy cataloguing their huge library, but not too busy to notice that they are getting poorer and poorer. Their Royal Wizard falls ill and is unable to help them, which is how we come to meet Charmain, a cross-grained teenager who has been brought up so respectably that she knows almost nothing about anything except books. Charmain is volunteered to look after the Royal Wizard’s house while he is ill. But of course a wizard’s house is bound to be peculiar, and this one is, very.

      While Charmain struggles with its peculiarities and with a very small and very greedy dog called Waif, she runs into the fearsome lubbock, a cocksure boy called Peter, a tribe of kobolds, and the inhabitants of the moving castle – Sophie, her son Morgan, Calcifer the fire demon and Wizard Howl in a very irritating disguise. Oh, and there are elves too, not to speak of Jamal the cook and his surly dog.

      I had fun writing this. I hope you will have equal fun reading it.

      Diana Wynne Jones

      

      Illustrated by Tim Stevens

      To my granddaughter, Ruth, together with Sharyn’s laundry and also to Lilly B.

      CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE	9
In which Charmain is volunteered to look after a wizard’s house
CHAPTER TWO	23
In which Charmain explores the house
CHAPTER THREE	39
In which Charmain works several spells at once
CHAPTER FOUR	55
Introduces Rollo, Peter and mysterious changes in Waif
CHAPTER FIVE	77
Wherein Charmain receives her anxious parent
CHAPTER SIX	103
Which concerns the colour blue
CHAPTER SEVEN	122
In which a number of people arrive at the Royal Mansion
CHAPTER EIGHT	151
In which Peter has trouble with the plumbing
CHAPTER NINE	169
In which Great Uncle William’s house proves to have many ways
CHAPTER TEN	196
In which Twinkle takes to the roof
CHAPTER ELEVEN	215
In which Charmain kneels on a cake
CHAPTER TWELVE	231
Concerns laundry and lubbock eggs
CHAPTER THIRTEEN	247
In which Calcifer is very active
CHAPTER FOURTEEN	263
Which is full of kobolds again