The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (The Chrestomanci Series: Book 4)

9/10

Think of a world, almost like our own but a little more genteel and old-fashioned, where magic and witchcraft is as common as mathematics - but just as dangerous in the wrong hands. In The Lives of Christopher Chant - the fourth book in her Worlds of Chrestomanci series - Diana Wynne Jones succeeds in creating a vision of England close to our expectations of what should be, but subtly different enough to excite our interest and draw us into a strange new world of incredible reality and possibilities. Christopher Chant is a dreamer, a boy who returns home each night with strange gifts from his nocturnal travels and leaves sand in his bed as proof. He's happy to play cricket and wander the world in secret - so having nine lives and being the next Chrestomanci is not part of his plans for the future. It's only when an evil smuggler known as The Wraith threatens his existence that the young Christopher truly takes hold of his destiny. He must try to halt his loss of lives and defeat evil before times runs out. Set at least 20 years before the events as told in the first Chrestmanci novel, Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant is a detailed fantasy and wild adventure with dollops of humour that will challenge and intrigue every fan of this sequence of otherworldly novels.