Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett, is published in hardback by Doubleday, priced £14.99. Available now.
"They say that there can never be two snowflakes that are exactly alike, but has anyone checked lately?"
In Wintersmith, the snowflakes all look the same, and they all look like young witch Tiffany Aching, because she made one little, terrible mistake and now the Wintersmith, the spirit of the winter, has fallen in love with her.
This is not only sl
ightly awkward, given she's a teenage girl and he is an ageless, bodiless spirit, but could potentially condemn the world to an icy doom.
Tiffany's efforts to avert this, while also dealing with the general crises attendant on adolescent life, are worked out with Pratchett's usual mix of uproarious comedy and deceptively serious thought - and a little help from his most famous witches, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.
Billed as 'A Story of Discworld', Wintersmith is another in the series of Pratchett books ostensibly aimed at young adults; aside from the age of the protagonist there remains little to distinguish these from his other Discworld novels.
Even as the novels 'for adults of all ages' have darkened, they've retained the lively wit, sly wisdom and compelling narratives which first attracted so many of Pratchett's now-adult readers as teenagers.
Similarly, while the Tiffany Aching books would undoubtedly be a good bridge into Pratchett's work for Harry Potter fans, the style and story show no trace of writing down to any particular age group, or of a calculated grab for the Potter demographic (Pratchett's been writing about the magical education of young folk since his third Discworld book, 1987's Equal Rites).
True, in large part the story addresses teenage concerns - finding one's place in the world, and the complications one suddenly discovers in relationships with the opposite sex - but it's hardly as if these are topics of exclusively teenage interest.
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