However, Sophie's simple life takes a turn for the exciting when she is ensnared in a disturbing situation, and the mysterious wizard appears to rescue her. Sophie, as the plain daughter of a hatmaker, does not expect much from her future and is content with working hard in the shop. That castle is home to the magnificent wizard Howl, infamous for both his magical prowess and for being a womanizer-or so the rumor goes in Sophie Hatter's small town. There’s no question of staying in the shop – her stepmother would have a fit – and she can’t face saying goodbye to a sister who wouldn’t recognise her, so she wraps herself in a shawl, collects her purse and shuffles off on an adventure she feels she hardly deserves.That jumbled piece of architecture, that cacophony of hissing steam and creaking joints, with smoke billowing from it as it moves on its own. Judging that her leathery cheeks are a better reflection of her true nature than her former youthful appearance, she decides she must just make do. Sophie’s reaction is equally unexpected, and just as straightforwardly convincing. Hobbling over to the mirror, Sophie is unsurprised to discover a gaunt old woman, “withered and brownish, surrounded by wispy white hair”, with her own eyes staring out at her, “looking rather tragic”. Jones measures out the awful realisation over a page or so – the strange croak in Sophie’s voice, the look of horror from the man standing by the shop door, the large veins on the back of Sophie’s suddenly wrinkled hands. The spell is typically uncanny, arriving without warning in a flinging motion of a spread hand, transforming Sophie in an instant before she or the reader has any idea what has happened.

Photograph: BuenaVist/Everett/Rex Features a still from the Studio Ghibli film adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle. ‘I’m dying of boredom,’ Howl said pathetically.

Howl's moving castle backgrounds