This book is nothing less than the perfect continuation of 'Howls moving Castle'. I really enjoyed it's wit and was very entertained by it's lovely characters.
The begginning may cause some confusion to those who await Sophie and Howl to be the protagonists though.
In fact we meet Abdullah, a young carpet merchant with slight family problems in a world that could have taken right out of '1001 nights'. ( I really love the way Jones depicts oriental manners of polite speaking! It's so funny!:D)
It doesn't take Howl and Sophie long to appear, you might not notice them at a first glance though.
I like this book, since it totally makes the 'Howls-moving-Castle-feeling' reappear (I had to reread 'Howl's moving Castle' right after I was finished ;) ) and that's the best thing a worthy successor can do.
Additional to this it is well written and quite easy to understand(wich is important for me as I'm clearly not a native speaker).