In this episode, Mal will be looking at 'Dido and Pa' by Joan Aiken, the author of the long running children's series set in an alternative history where the Stuarts are still on the throne and the Hanoverians plot their removal. Most people may know Joan Aiken from her first novel 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' (1962) but she had a very successful writing career, and the 'Wolves Chronicles' is only one of the novel series she wrote.

With 'Dido and Pa' we'll be looking at how families in one form or another (real or cobbled together) might raise questions for an out of order reader. Plus, what are the challenges of reading an alternative history out of order? We'll also take a look at death in this novel, the Gothic nature of the deaths and the challenges it poses for someone like me wandering in so far into the series - 'Dido and Pa' is  ...