Book Description | "Living in a house full of magic is not easy, you know."
This is Aunt Sempronia's advice to Charmaine, the heroine of the third and final part of the Howl trilogy. Charmaine is taken to manage the affairs of the High Norland Wizard's house, Great Uncle William, at the recommendation of Aunt Sempronia.
Charmaine was raised well by her parents, the Bakers, but they went too far and kept her away from everything in their desire for her to become a "respectable" girl, and she did nothing good except read books that she buried her nose in all the time. So she seeks to achieve her dream of joining the King of High Norland and his daughter, Princess Hilda, in sorting their library.
Charmaine learns simple things in the Wizard's House, such as washing dishes, tidying the house, and the art of laundry, so she does not wash a red suit with white clothes. She tries to be kind to Wave and Peter, who teaches her a lot, even though he doesn't know the difference between right and left.
In the small house - apparently - with its one door that takes us to many places, Charmaine discovers her many hidden talents. She is a natural witch who succeeds in stopping the water from gushing from the cracked pipes, flying in the meadow and confronting the Lubbock, and exposing the trick of the kobold Rollo and protecting the kingdom with her dog Wave.
Living in the wizard's house was not easy, as Charmaine concluded, but she got to know herself and other people she would not have known had she not lived there, and most importantly, she got to know life as she had never known it before. |