Charmaine is a young girl who asks for nothing more than time, quiet, and a good book. Which she should be able to get while house-sitting her great-uncle's home. Unfortunately, the old man is a wizard and is house, a little shabby on the outside, turns out to be rather magical.
This book, the third volume in Diana Wynne Jones' Moving Castle trilogy (of which Howl's Moving Castle is the first and Castle in the Air the second), is an absolutely charming, whimsical delight. Just as the house hides corridors leading in improbable direction, so does the plot weaves in and out, never losing you along the way but providing plenty of surprises. It starts quite like Howl's Moving Castle, and the two heroins share similarities, but they evolve in different directions. Though I wasn't as enchanted as with the first volume, House of Many Ways is perfectly escapist and light-hearted.