Description:

Someone at Stallery Mansion is changing the world. At first, only small details, but the changes get bigger and bigger. It's up to Conrad, a twelve-year-old with terrible karma who's just joined the mansion's staff, to find out who is behind it.

But he's not the only one snooping around. His fellow servant-in-training, Christopher Chant, is charming, confident, and from another world, with a mission of his own -- rescuing his friend, lost in an alternate Stallery Mansion. Can they save the day before Conrad's awful fate catches up with them?

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"Unless you put right what you did wrong in your previous life -- and put it right now -- you are going to be horribly and painfully dead before the year's out."

Someone at the mysterious Stallery Mansion is pulling the possibilities. At first only small details change -- the color of the mailboxes, the titles of books -- but the changes keep getting bigger and bigger. It's up to Conrad Tesdinic, a twelve-year-old with truly terrible karma, to find the person behind it all.

Armed with his camera and a sticky cork that can summon an eerie being called a Walker, Conrad infiltrates the staff at Stallery. And he's not the only one snooping around the mansion. His fellow servant-in-training -- charming, confident Christopher Chant -- is searching for his friend Millie, who's lost in one of the possibilities. Christopher always seems to have a trick up his sleeve. To find the person behind all the mischief and to rescue Millie, the two boys have to work together. Can they keep Conrad's fate from catching up to them?

Amazon.com Review

Devotees of The Chrestomanci Quartet and Mixed Magics will pounce on this sixth title in the series by Diana Wynne Jones, whose reputation as a fantasy writer is also enhanced by Archer’s Goon and Howl’s Moving Castle (soon to be an animated film). In this Chrestomanci tale, the nine-lived enchanter Christopher, who fans will remember from other books, appears as a dapper and self-possessed 15-year-old, and the narrator is young Conrad Tesdinic, who at the age of twelve has just finished school in the mountain village of Stallchester in the English Alps. He yearns to go on to Stall High, but his tight-fisted Uncle Alfred has other plans. With the help of magical spells and a story of bad karma, he intimidates Conrad into going off to serve on the staff at Stallery Mansion, burdened with a secret about an unknown person he must kill. Conrad makes the best of his new life, especially after he meets his elegant new roommate Christopher, who is, he explains, the heir in a different time level to the job of Chrestomanci, an enchanter appointed by the government to control the use of magic. Conrad joins him in his desperate search for his friend Millie, who has vanished from a parallel time track. Amusing scenes of life below stairs in the highly stratified servants’ quarters alternate with the boys’ strange adventures as they seek through other realities within the castle on their day off, glimpsing Millie but never able to reach her. With Wynne Jones’ characteristic skill at plotting, the finale is a whirlwind of revealed alter-identities and just desserts for villains, ending with as many satisfying romantic pairings as a Shakespeare comedy. (Ages 10-13) --Patty Campbell

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10–Jones is a master of British fantasies that are hilariously droll and totally heartfelt at the same time. This is a new novel in the series that began with Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant (both 1998, HarperCollins), the story of how Christopher, the "nine-lifed enchanter" who regulates the uses of magic throughout 12 sets of alternate worlds, began his career. This book introduces Conrad Tesdinic, a boy who lives in one of the Series Seven worlds and has been told throughout his youth that he has bad luck, an Evil Fate, bad karma. When he graduates from lower school at the age of 12, his magician uncle reveals that Conrad's black Fate has been caused by his failure to kill a depraved evildoer in a previous life. The reincarnated evildoer, he is told, dwells in nearby Stallery Mansion, which generates so much magic that no one living nearby gets any TV reception. Conrad must take a job as a servant at the mansion and kill the villain, whose identity he must discover. Once hired, he meets his roommate and fellow servant, a smug, handsome young man named–aha!–Christopher. Almost all the players–including Conrad–conceal their true identities as they dash from one alternate Stallery Mansion to another, solving several interlocking mysteries. This witty, satisfying story can be read on its own, but is much richer when read as part of the series. It's a must for all Jones fans.–Walter Minkel, New York Public Library
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Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones Chrestomanci novel – now a book with extra bits! Conrad is young, good at heart, and yet is apparently suffering from the effects of such bad karma that there is nothing in his future but terrible things. Unless he can alter his circumstances – well, quite frankly, he is DOOMED. Conrad is sent in disguise to Stallery Mansion, to infiltrate the magical fortress that has power over the whole town of Stallchester, and to discover the identity of the person who is affecting his Fate so badly. Then he has to kill that person. But can any plan really be that simple and straightforward? Of course it can't! And things start to go very strangely for Conrad from the moment he meets the boy called Christopher... This is trademark DWJ – packed with laugh-aloud humour, insane logic, spot-on observations, organised chaos, and all wrapped up in a rattling good adventure which oozes magic from every seam. Literally.