Description
Book Synopsis‘It’s a rotten old job being King!’ says Dido Twite. Her friend King Simon agrees – his scheming courtiers want to marry him off to a pushy princess, and he has to lead his army against a tribe of invading Wends.
Their only hope is to find a long-lost heir to take Simon’s place on the throne of England, with the help of failed witch Malise and her prophesying parrot.
The last book in the series that first introduced Simon as the hero of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a helter-skelter of battles, vicious villains and mysterious monsters, packed full of magic and humour. If you don’t know the Wolves Chronicles, this gives a wonderful taste of Joan Aiken’s fantastic world – and you still have all the rest to discover!
Trade ReviewDido, a child Odysseus, is one of the great fictional heroines * The Times *
What I relish in particular is the swiftness of the telling, the vigour with which brilliant moments of perception seem to be imporvised in the sheer delight of the onward rush of the story
"Quirky" is a word which could have been invented to describe the books in this series . . . What they are, first and foremost, is fun * Observer *
To the last, energy and invention show no sign of flapping * TES *
Brilliant in its own right,
The Witch of Clatteringshaws is also a wholly satisfying ending to Joan Aiken's long-running and original saga of Dido Twite and her friend Simon Battersea * Guardian *
