by Joan Aiken
Published 1971
In this next installment of the Wolves series, Dido Twite has finally made it back to England. King James (this is an AU England, remember) has died and his son, Richard, is getting ready to be crowned. On their way to London, Dido the captain of the ship she arrived on have a carriage accident, and the captain is quite injured. They are forced to stay in near a small town, where there are many strange goings-on.
While I liked The Cuckoo Tree better than The Stolen Lake, there was just too much going on in this book for it to be a favorite. Smugglers, witches, kidnapping, an elephant, twins, assassins, plots to kill the king, and more!
In the last book, Dido met King Arthur and a woman who had lived for hundreds of years, yet in England she acts as though magic is a ridiculous and impossible thing. The witches are creepy, but kind of pathetic, because all they want to do is go back to a southern-sea island where it’s warm and happy. One of the characters listens to a strange voice in her head as though it’s a real person, and it’s never really explained at all. The elephant comes out of nowhere, with basically no explanation. It was a rather confusing book, although not as bloodthirsty as the on before it.
So an average 3/5 for this one.
The Aroma of Books 