The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne JonesGreenwillow (HarperCollins), 2006

This is the last of the Chrestomanci books, chronologically, and it’s really satisfying: it’s set in and around Chrestomanci Castle and features Cat Chant as one of the central characters, with Chrestomanci and the rest of his family making appearances, too, and it also features a new character, Marianne Pinhoe, and her large magical family, who find themselves in a feud with another magical family who are normally their allies. Marianne and Cat are similar: they’re both practical and kind, and they’re both young people with strong magic who are learning how to trust and use their own strength. There’s too much going on, plotwise, for me to want to attempt a summary, but there are so many great bits, from Cat’s bond with a horse to what hatches from the egg of the title to Marianne’s reunion with someone she loves.

I love the descriptions of the different kinds of magic in this book, from the furniture Marianne’s dad makes (“chairs that worked to keep you comfortable, tables bespelled so that anyone who used them felt happy, cabinets that kept dust out, wardrobes that repelled moths, and many other things”) to the way that Cat’s horse changes the way he sees the world (“He began to notice things in that special way that Syracuse seemed to be training him to do. He sniffed the smells of the grass, the ditches, and the hedges, and the dustier smell of the crops standing in the fields”). Or this passage:

While he was speaking, Cat was feeling the shape of the house with his mind. It was all big, square, airy rooms, lots of them, and though it echoed with emptiness and neglect, underneath that it was warm and happy and eager to be lived in again.

This book has lots of humor, and also some excellent creepy/frightening moments, and oh, Cat Chant is such a great character.