The Shepherd's Crown

Tiffany Aching, Book 5

By: Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: Indira Varma, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, Steven Cree

Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Fantasy grandmaster Sir Terry Pratchett's final Discworld novel, and the fifth to feature the witch Tiffany Aching.

A SHIVERING OF WORLDS

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.

As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land.

There will be a reckoning. . . .

THE FINAL DISCWORLD NOVEL

• The five funny and fabulous Tiffany Aching adventures are:
• The Wee Free Men
• A Hat Full of Sky
• Wintersmith
• I Shall Wear Midnight
• The Shepherd’s Crown

Tiffany’s mentors, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, star in the novels Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum.

And don’t miss Terry Pratchett’s hilarious and wise Discworld novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents!

©2015 Terry Pratchett (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

A touching ending to a wonderful series!

This was Terry Pratchett's final book before he died as we are told in the introduction, and a bittersweet goodbye it is! The readers/performers do an excellent job, as is their usual for this series, and the production values are very high.

Tiffany Aching finds her limits in this final book of the series as she becomes responsible for Granny Weatherwax's stead and cottage as well as her own folk of the Chalk. Elves attack when they sense weakness. The elf Queen is deposed and is rescued by Tiffany, and begins to learn what it is to be human. The witches gather, and the countryside rouses to show the Elves their time has passed.

The characters and details are drawn from all across the Lancre Witches/Tiffany Aching books, and it is rather like the author is giving the long-time reader a hug from all of Lancre, and a kiss from the Chalk!

Here’s to the Women

I love that this is Terry’s legacy—the last gift he gave us. A celebration of young women and old women and self assured women and stuttering women and thin women and fat women and women who respect each other and women who challenge each other. Women who choose career and women who choose love. Women who choose solitude and women who choose companionship. No woman is singled out as the ideal or correct way to be a woman. This book and series celebrates the many ways in which women demonstrate strength.

The Tiffany Aching saga and the associated Witches saga are a masterclass in how to celebrate women and raise strong ones.

The performance by all the actors was tremendous. I was sobbing at the dedication alone. And yet, at the end of the tale, I was dry eyed. I was hopeful. This book is such a beautiful treatise on the value of a life and a legacy while also a celebration of the future.

If I took one message from this book it’s to learn from our past and to hold it as sacred, but to always look forward and forge your own way. Here’s to Tiffany and to Esmeralda and to all the other amazing, powerful women from Ankh-Morpork to The Chalk to Lancre.