What a marvellous story! This might be aimed at pre-teens but there are adult focussed authors who could learn a lot from Diana. Plotting, pacing, characters and description are all exemplary and the twist at the end I really did not see coming!
I really liked the character of Cat – long suffering but always trying to do the right thing, even if that just seems to dig him deeper into a hole of trouble.
All the other characters are well drawn and have surprising depth for a relatively short book – I’m tempted to describe many of them as “Dickensian”, and not only in their mode of dress.
There’s clearly a whole world (dozens, in fact) to be explored in future books but the nice thing about Charmed Life is that it is complete and satisfying as it stands – the sequels flow from the threads laid down but they are not the primary concern, the story of Cat/Eric is.
This was so good that I wish I had some easily available young relatives that I could read it to. I bought this as part of matching set of all the series, along with the three “Howl” books and I’m looking forward to reading all of them although I see that the recommended reading order is not the same as the publication so I’ll be going back to “The Lives of Christopher Chant” next.
Finally, high praise for the lovely David Frankland covers and the extra material at the end.