Witches Abroad – Josh Kirby Paperback – Letterbox Edition

There is power in stories. The fairy godmother is good. The servant girl marries the prince. Everyone lives happily ever after. Unless someone has decided that the story matters more than the people inside it.

Desiderata Hollow leaves Magrat Garlick a wand and a job: go to Genua and make sure Emberella does not marry the prince. Granny Weatherwax does not hold with godmothering. Nanny Ogg holds with travel, food and Greebo in a basket. Magrat holds with doing as she was asked. The three of them take to the air and follow a road that looks suspiciously like a plot.

Genua is a city built on gumbo, masks and other people’s narratives. Lilith has arranged the kingdom the way a collector arranges dolls. Vampires, wolves and falling cottages turn up on cue. Mirror magic answers back. Granny’s headology meets a woman who thinks destiny is something you enforce with a slipper.

First published in 1991, Witches Abroad is Discworld novel 12 and the third book in the Witches sequence, after Equal Rites and Wyrd Sisters. It is the one where Pratchett takes fairy tales apart and asks who the story is for. You can start here if you already know the coven. If you do not, this is still a complete adventure: broomsticks, bayou, and a fierce argument about whether a better world can be built for people or only by them.

This new Letterbox paperback from Penguin uses Josh Kirby’s original painting. Classic Kirby chaos for the shelf: witches abroad, and a story that will not take no for an answer.

• Discworld novel 12
• Witches series book 3
• Publisher: Penguin
• Cover artist: Josh Kirby
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 368
• Size: approx. 198 mm × 128 mm × 22 mm