The Pinhoe Egg

By Diana Wynne Jones

Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones favourite, featuring Chrestomanci – now a book with extra bits!

Spells always have consequences and it's Chrestomanci's job to make sure everything is safely under control. Even so, in the village around Chrestomanci Castle, all sorts of secret magical misuse is going on. And when Cat Chant finds the Pinhoe egg, chaos is just the beginning!

A masterpiece of magic, mayhem and mirth!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9780007349951

Diana Wynne Jones

DIANA WYNNE JONES was born in August 1934 in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. The family moved around a lot, finally settling in rural Essex. As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by a father, ‘who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest’. So, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable quest for good books to read, she decided that she would have to write them herself.

Reviews for The Pinhoe Egg

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sadly, the last book in the Chrestomanci series. This really shows Diana Wynne Jones at the top of her game, and reminds me how sadly she will be missed.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In the offkilter world of Chrestomanci, in which enchanters and early twentieth century technology exist side-by-side, Christopher "Cat" Chant is a young boy still training his magic. While exploring the woods, he comes across mysterious magical barricades and a forest that seems oddly empty. Meanwhile, the Pinhoes are doing everything in their power to keep him and the other denizens of the castle from making any further discoveries.

Sweet, funny, lovely.

[bostonian71 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another fun page-turner with interesting plots and multiple perspectives. I loved hearing about dwimmer, yet another new kind of magic in the Wynne Jones universe (perhaps a nod to Tolkien?), and I thought the alternating chapters from Marianne's and Cat's points-of-view worked very well. I do agree that most of the witches were annoying and/or outright evil, but at least they all get their comeuppance one way or another.

[pussreboots · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones is the sixth of the Chrestomanci series. Near Chrestomanci's, there's a pair of feuding families — both secretly magic users. Things come to a head when the matriarch of the Pinhoes is forced out of her home and into a retirement home. Uprooted from her home, a long lost egg is found and ends up in the care of those living at Chrestomanchi's manor — whilst he (as always) remains oblivious.Coming off the excitement of reading the very satisfying and tight Conrad's Fate (book five), I couldn't wait to jump into The Pinhoe Egg. But the lengthy (and seemingly never ending) open scene of the Pinhoes trying to remove the matriarch soured me to the rest of the book.I had a feeling these Pinhoe scenes were supposed to be funny — as so often baddies of lower socio-economic status are played up to be. But these sorts of baddies — who are always invariably bumbling but somehow super resilient — end up being forced caricatures, rather than being either funny or fully realized characters. The Pinhoes are the worst of the worst of this sort of character type.So every scene involving either the Pinhoes or their rivals ended up being an excruciating chore to read. Eventually I got to the point of skimming / yelling at the Pinhoe scenes (as my husband can attest to).Woven around all this Pinhoe padding, is a novella of Cat and his friendship with a couple of the more normal members of the rival families. They help clean out the old Pinhoe home which has layers upon layers of hidden magic, hiding even darker secrets. Among all this, they find an egg. It hatches under extraordinary circumstances and that helps them to finally piece together the long lost history of a terrible tragedy that had befallen the valley centuries ago.Frankly if Jones had started with that tragedy and played it straight up, rather than trying for comedy, the book would have been a fantastic ending to an otherwise charming series. As it stands, though, it's by far my least favorite of the books even though it has some of my most favorite characters in it.

[raschneid_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wish I had read this sooner after Charmed Life, as it is a pretty close sequel. I enjoyed the development of the world, the complicated family dynamic, and what was essentially an environmental message at the heart of the book.

Wish we'd seen more of Janet! She cracked me up in Charmed Life, and was very fun in this one but wasn't a main character. It's refreshing that she's not a magic-user, though.

Also, Chrestomanci's embroidered dressing gown to page ratio was extremely high. I think he may wear five or six different dressing gowns in this book! Exciting indeed.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Pinhoe Egg is magnificent. Marianne is a great character, and the other Pinhoes are firmly established too - simplistic but not cardboard. I like Cat best - his was the first Chrestomanci story I read - so this illumination of his life is great. Not sidelight, it's a continuation of his story, since we haven't seen him as an adult or Chrestomanci yet. Joe and Roger together are nicely mad; Janet and Julia are left out of things a bit but when they do show up they're well-drawn. The way all the various storylines intertwine - Grammer's 'illness', the empty forest, Joe at the castle and Marianne in the village, the Pinhoe house, the egg, all the rest of it - is great. They seem quite individual to start with, then start getting mixed, then they turn out all to be facets or reflections of one problem. Though I have to say Chrestomanci's summing up, though no doubt accurate, comes way out of left field. I wish we'd seen some of the research that produced those answers.

[bluesalamanders · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved it, absolutely loved it. I love the old Chrestomanci books like Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant but the latest ones are, if possible, even better. This one starts out just a little bit slow with some necessary build-up, but once it gets going, it gets going and is a cracking good story the rest of the way through.

[ajbraithwaite_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's OK, but not one of her best.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another – another! Did he just pop out of the back of her mind after all these years and start talking to her? – Chrestomanci novel, and a delight from start to finish. Yes, one did wonder why, when the magic-using families were so dedicated to keeping their existence a secret from Chrestomanci Castle, the younger members of the tribe cheerfully told everybody there all about themselves, but, whatever. Also, DWJ gets points for being fixated on griffins, which makes a nice change from bloody dragons all the time.

[callmecayce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know exactly how to say this, but I completely and utterly adored this book. It was funny, clever and seriously a lot of fun. It ended exactly the way I'd hoped. I've been a fan of Jones since I was young, but hadn't read any of the Chrestomanci books in ages. This was the perfect book to pick up and read. It's quick, clever and fun -- even if you have no idea what the series is about. I do hope that Jones continues with Eric and Marianne's story. I definitely want to find out what happens to them.

[readermom_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the newest book in the Chrestomanci series by Dianna Wynne Jones. I really like her books. They are technically YA books, so have to make an effort to find them but its usually worth it.She has good plotting and realistic characters, for a book about magic at least. She tends to deal with issues pretty squarely too, a nice middle ground in a category (YA) that either tends to gloss over bad things or dwell on them in the interests of "realism."The Chrestomanci is an enchanter who is in charge of magical law-keeping. As the ultimate authority in magical things he is a good foil for talking about ways of dealing with authority. Someone in most of these books needs help but is too afraid of authority for various reasons to go to the person who could help them. Aimed at teenagers it is a good theme I think. But it also talks about the things adults do to undermine the trust and authority they have. In this one there are communities of witches who have stayed under the official radar for hundreds of years and a lot of the effort in the communities goes into avoiding the Chrestomanci's gaze. Since they live very close to him that takes some doing. Then the matriarch of one of the families goes a bit batty, dementia we assume, and things get really bad. It makes you glad we don't have magic in real life. The idea of a sorcerer getting Alzheimer's or a stroke is frightening.A good story, I enjoyed it.

[sailflyer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pages-480. The Gammer of the Pinhoe family of witches has finally lost her mind. Literally, lost her mind. Marianne believes that the Gaffer of the Farleigh's (another family) was responsible, but no one else believes her. Meanwhile, in Chrestomanci Castle, Cat's friend, Jason, is getting married. When Jason and his wife, Irene, go looking for a house, they bring Cat along. In the last house they look at, Cat sees Marianne and helps her find her cat, Nutcase. They find the cat, but Cat comes home with, what he suspects to be, an egg. A few days later the egg hatches and out pops a baby griffen, one of the rarest beast in the related worlds. Together with Marianne, he discovers some mightily interesting secrets about the Pinhoe family. All the while trying to keep Chrestomanci, the most powerful enchanter in the world, from finding out about what he's doing.

[sunnysd_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Marianne Pinhoe doesn't want to be Gammer. Joe Pinhoe doesn't want to be a boot boy at the Castle. Cat Chant is pretty sure he doesn't want a horse. Unfortunately, what you do and don't want doesn't make much difference when you're young enough to be bossed around by adults. When Gammer Pinhoe loses her mind and starts sending nasty spells to plague the neighboring Farleigh clan, things get out of hand pretty quickly. A stasis bound egg, chronically escaping cat, infestations of frogs, and fleas, misdirecting paths, and imprisoned creatures round out the problems facing Joe, Marianne and Cat in Jones' latest Chrestomanci book. In typical Jones' fashion, everything isn't at all what it seems, but ultimately all the loose ends magically weave themselves together into one comprehensive pattern.

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Good. It's good to have another Cat story. I always liked him better than Christopher.

[mscongeniality · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was in no way disappointed with this book. The story was a beautifully told fantasy with a slightly dark edge to it offset entirely by the book's inherent sense of humor. It is neither deep nor perfectly plotted, but that's hardly what I turn to Diana Wynne Jones' books for. It was a great story that I had fun with and that's everything I needed it to be.

[capfox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I felt getting in one more Jones book for the year was a good call, and so here we are. And a Chrestomanci one, no less! This book has got some of the same characters as the earlier Chrestomanci books, with Millie, Chrestomanci, Janet, and Cat, among others, making another bow. They're definitely welcome, although I don't remember Charmed Life quite so well these days, and so I probably did miss this stuff.Like most DWJ sequels, though, the focus isn't really on the people from the earlier books, although Cat is featured fairly prominently. Here, the spotlight is really on Marianne Pinhoe, a young woman with more talent than she realizes, and her clan of magic users, who are quite the cast of characters. The story has two axes, with the Pinhoe side looking at the rivalry between the Pinhoes and another magical group, the Farleighs, and the other side with Cat working on why the countryside around the castle seems off, somehow.The story is rich, with lots of different parts interwoven and characters bouncing around into unexpected places, and the writing style is the usual one DWJ has, with sprightful lines and colorful descriptions that get the action across in a novel way. I don't think this is my favorite of her books, but it's on par with the better Chrestomanci novels, and that's certainly saying something.

[yarmando_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somewhat lighter than earlier Chrestomanci books. There doesn't seem to be much real danger here that anything very bad will happen to the protagonists. Several magical families operate in the area of Chrestomanci's castle, concealed from his bureaucratic oversite. But over the summer, rivalries between these clans cause all that concealment to unravel, and in the middle of these events is Marianne Pinhoe who is (in typical fashion for characters in this series) more powerful than anyone expects.

[marnattij · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three groups of witches clash in this entry in the light fantasy Chrestmanci series. When Cat and his enchanted animals and Marianne and her wandering kitty stop a witches war. I kept waiting for the story to begin. Maybe there were too many threads for someone who hasn't read all the Chrestomanci books. Very readably and mostly likeable characters. I do want to go back and read the others in the series now.

[flissp_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love Diana Wynne Jones, but found this one a bit disappointing, although I did enjoy it. Maybe I'm finally growing up!