It is always exciting to discover that an author you like has written more books than you realized! This is apparently true of Joan Aiken, who wrote The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, one of my favorite children’s stories that I still re-read from time to time.

A friend shared this article about Aiken on Facebook today, which taught me many things that I didn’t know. For example, I did not realize that The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (and the other books in that series) is set in an alternate history for England. As the author of the article describes, the book is certainly full of all kinds of tropes, but Aiken uses them with such obvious delight, and is such a good story-teller, that I can’t say I ever really noticed them.

I think I’ll start by looking up the other books in The Wolves Chronicles, and then try some of Aiken’s other work as well. It all sounds wonderfully imaginative!

~Ethelinda