I've fallen in love, all over again, with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Chronicles by Joan Aiken. Sadly, I don't have all the books. However, I'm busy acquiring the titles missing from my collection. These include the final book, The Witch of Clatteringshaws, which was published posthumously. (Joan Aiken died in January 2004. Read about her here.)
The books are set in an alternate universe: James III is king of England, wolves prowl the country, which is connected to France by a tunnel, and America is a Roman colony.
Feisty young cockney lass, Dido Twite, is the series' central character. She's a brave, resourceful, no-nonsense sort of girl with a kind heart and a unique and amusing turn of phrase.
Most of the books see Dido thwarting plots to overthrow the King. Otherwise, she's busy helping poor, downtrodden souls, or meeting totally bizarre characters who either try to kill her or whose lives she saves.
Werewolves, witches, sinister dwarves and a 500-year-old Queen who stays alive by eating porridge made from the bones of small girls are just some of the weirdos Dido encounters in her many travels. It's all tremendous fun and totally fantastic, but Aiken writes in such a brisk, matter-of-fact way that even something like the second-coming of King Arthur Pendragon (as a South American ship steward no less) doesn't seem at all unlikely.
The books can be read as standalones, but I enjoy reading them in order because it's fun to see the way the recurring characters (especially Dido of course) develop and change. The way Dido just rushes headlong into one adventure after another, sometimes purely by accident, at others by choice, is also terribly entertaining. I'm amazed at (and envious of) her boundless energy!
The Chronicles comprise, in reading order:
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