⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 – A major tone shift as things get a lot darker and heavier for Tiffany.
Format: Audio (Audible)
Read: May 2026
I took a little break from Tiffany – to read/listen to The Locked Tomb series – and it was quite jarring to return to this series and find such a dramatic shift in tone from her previous books. This book is dark and heavy, and for most of it, really quite depressing! You can tell the change in the book’s tone in the quotes I’ve picked out; while the writing is still brilliant, there are a lot fewer laughs in this one.
I know Sir Terry didn’t talk down to the children, which I very much applaud him for, but I didn’t expect a ‘Discworld for Children‘ book to start with a man having beaten his pregnant thirteen-year-old daughter, Amber, so severely she loses the baby she was carrying. Tiffany – now 15 and in her steading as The Witch of The Chalk – has to deal with the fallout, including Mr Petty physically threatening her when she tries to persuade him to leave town. She’s concerned that the men of the town will form a mob, things will get out of hand, and someone will kill him.
From there, things don’t get any easier for Tiffany (but they do for Amber, who is looked after by the Nac Mac Feegle). She is coping with a lot. The day-to-day of being the lone witch responsible for such a large patch is exhausting work (being a witch is essentially social work), plus she’s trying to work through complicated feelings over Roland’s upcoming marriage to the beautiful blonde Letitia, and then there is a supernatural entity, The Cunning Man, after her, spreading fear and hatred of witches throughout the land. Her tiredness was visceral. Listening to the audiobook, I felt exhausted on her behalf (and also possibly because I was digging a trench at the same time!).
…in truth, there had never been all that much hatred, more of a kind of miffed feeling. She’d known all along that she’d never be a lady, not without the long blonde hair. It was totally against the whole book of fairytales. She just hadn’t liked being rushed into accepting it.
The resolution – if we want to call it that – to Tiffany and Roland’s relationship was really interesting, and very relatable. Romantic feelings had been hinted at in earlier books, ever since she rescued him from the fairies in the first book, and while nothing romantic really developed on the page, Tiffany, Roland and the reader had some kind of understanding that it would. The two odd children of The Chalk, each an outsider and much cleverer than the others in their different ways, who had survived an adventure together, would surely end up living happily ever after. I could relate to that feeling of having to process the loss of something unspoken that you were never sure you wanted, but that got taken away from you a little bit earlier than you were ready for. It is a tricky knot to untangle, and part of growing up.
And where they had gone wrong was in believing, somewhere in their minds, that because two things were different, they must therefore be alike. Slowly finding out that this wasn’t true hadn’t been nice for either of them and there had been a certain number of things that both of them wished hadn’t been said. And then it wasn’t over, because it had never begun, not really, of course. And so it was best for both of them. Of course. Certainly. Yes
There were a couple of new witches introduced that I greatly enjoyed. Mrs Proust lives in Ank-Morpork, is a city witch and is the purveyor of Boffo Joke Emporium! She was fun and a nice contrast to all the hedge witches we’ve previously met out in Lancre. While in the city, the Watchmen also make a brief appearance! It’s been many years since I read Guards! Guards! but it was fun to see them (maybe I’ll revisit that series!).
Even more exciting is that Eskarina Smith shows up to aid Tiffany! Esk! From Equal Rites, Granny’s original trainee witch and the first ever female Wizard! We learn a little bit about what happened to her after she was admitted to The Unseen University, but really not enough, honestly. And it also sounds really sad; this is a sad book.
‘You’re her, aren’t you? You must be, you’re her! Eskarina Smith, right? The only woman who ever became a wizard!’
‘Somewhere inside, I suppose so, yes, but it seems such a long time ago, and you know, I never really felt like a wizard, so I never really worried about what anyone said. And anyway, I had the staff, and no one could take that away from me.’ Eskarina hesitated for a moment, and then went on, ‘That’s what I learned at university: to be me, just what I am, and not worry about it. That knowledge is an invisible magical staff, all by itself. Look, I don’t really want to talk about this. It brings back bad memories.’
‘Please forgive me,’ said Tiffany. ‘I just couldn’t stop myself. I’m very sorry if I have dredged up any scary recollections.’
Eskarina smiled. ‘Oh, the scary ones are never a problem. It’s good ones that can be difficult to deal with.’
Granny and Nanny also make appearances, but it’s quite minor. This is Tiffany’s battle.
The Cunning Man is an ancient supernatural being that spreads hatred against witches through infecting the minds of the petty, vindictive or otherwise evil-minded and spreading lies and ill-feelings. He was born out of the witch hunts and witch burnings of the past, but his ability to use the zeitgeist and misinformation to stir up a mob of distrust and fear of a minority group is still depressingly recognisable in our modern ’round world.’ It is this that makes him a genuinely scary villain, and why I felt so stressed reading it!
People can be very stupid, and people can be easily frightened, but sometimes you find people who aren’t that stupid and aren’t that fearful, and so the Cunning Man is thrust out of the world. Thrown out like the rubbish he is.
While she goes through a really shit time in this book, Tiffany does come out the other side with some hope for the future, some new friends and improved relationships for all on The Chalk. The way this wraps up did make it feel like it could be the last in the series, and since by this point Sir Terry was a few years into Alzheimer’s disease, he may have thought that might be… and this could also explain the tone shift.
This one also had some of the same problems I had with Wintersmith. At times, the story felt cluttered and muddled (though this did add to the effect of Tiffany’s stress – she’s now got fourth thoughts as well as the established first, second and third), and not all the plot lines were followed through; for example, the story of Amber felt like it was going somewhere, but then it was dropped, and also the inclusion of Eskarina and what she has going on! Tiffany also defeated the main villain rather abruptly in the end, and The Baroness, who had been quite a problem, also has a very sudden about-face.
For Law of Fives, this counts towards a 5-book series, published 2010, and The Cunning Man is another fantastic creature.
REVIEW SUMMARY
I LIKED
- Tiffany always feels like a whole and real person to me. She is as fantastic as ever.
- Eskarina Smith reappears!
- Mrs Proust was also great.
- Themes were relatable and resonated (the complicated disappointments of growing older, the quick spread of hate and misinformation).
I DIDN’T LIKE
- The events at the start with Mr Petty were startling and extreme.
- The plot was muddled; some threads were left unresolved or too easily resolved.
- Not enough Eskarina!
