Normally I have to umm and ahh a bit to decide which of my favourite authors gets to be next in my contest but this month, for sad reasons, I know exactly who is the right person.  You can read about my love of Diana Wynne Jones here. But even though she has gone (still sad here in Oz), her wonderful wonderful stories live on and hopefully will be entertaining and enlightening readers for many many many years to come.

Sadly my all time favourite DWJ book, Fire and Hemlock is out of print (dear publishers, please reprint it!) so instead we move onto another of my favourites (which was a difficult decision!) of hers.

You may have seen the brilliant movie of this book made by Hayao Miyazaki, which is a bit different to the book  or maybe not. But Howl’s Moving Castle has a determined heroine, evil witches, a spoilt yet somehow sexy hero and many other Diana Wynne Jones trademarks. Magic and ordinariness and people who are not perfect trying to win the day. I guess it’s technically YA but it’s a damn good read no matter what the classification.

To be in the running to win a copy of Howl, just comment on any post this month.

As usual, my reasons for the contest are here.

As I said in yesterday’s post, I’m off to the RT Booklovers convention tomorrow and will be online as and when I can be but not as much as usual. If you’re going to RT, say hi to a nervous newbie author (also a disclaimer in advance that I’ll be somewhat jetlagged so if you catch me yawning at any point, it’s not that I’m bored lol). For those staying put, I’ll try and blog/tweet etc otherwise, I’m back in the middle of the month and there’ll be a second contest running this month for Aussie Author Month when I am.