I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
"It starts with whispers.

Then someone picks up a stone.

Finally, the fires begin.

When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .

Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.

But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her."- summary from Amazon

(Side note: I hate blogger and their damn Service Unavailable crap; WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?)

OK, so this is my second time having to write this, in which case it'll probably be shorter. I knew I should've copied it before hitting Publish. Anyway, I've missed Pratchett's books. It's been way too long since I've last read one. He's one of my favorite authors and one I think more people should read. So if you aren't reading him already, go grab one of his books. If this series sounds intriguing, start with The Wee Free Men. Also, Harper's actually reprinted the first two books together as The Wee Free Men: The Beginning, so you can check that out too.

I love this series and just Pratchett's writing in general. The characters are always fully realized that they feel like old friends even from the beginning, the humor is spot-on and makes me laugh out loud, and some scenes just make you think about the world around you and how you look at things. His prose just flows so easily and half the book is over with before you know it.

I also love how he does his witches. They aren't your usual witches with spells and magical powers. They're more organic, in a sense- they just know things most people don't, help out the people in their village, are usually very clever, and they do occasionally fight evil, but not necessarily with spells and potions. It's just such a refreshing and original take on witches. And Tiffany is such a great role model and protagonist- strong, clever, and just all-around awesome.

My favorite characters of these books though are the Nac Mac Feegle (the blue people you see on the cover). They are HILARIOUS and I'm always cracking up whenever they're in the scene. They're just such great characters.

There were times though that some scenes felt like deja vu, like I'd seen them before, and that bothered me a bit because I could see where something was going and ended up being right (I'm usually horrible at this, so when I can actually do it, it's a big deal). But overall, it's still a really good book and a fitting conclusion to the series. I really enjoyed it and now need to find time to fit more Pratchett books into my reading schedule!

FTC: Received ARC from publisher. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.