Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series! (If you aren't familiar with her, she wrote Howl's Moving Castle that Hayao Miyazaki made into a good-but-not-the-book-at-all movie with the same name.) Basically, there are PARALLEL WORLDS and MAGIC and silly references to cricket and fancy embroidered dressing robes. MORE DETAILS WOULD RUIN THE SECRET THINGS. I mean, I've never read a book by her that I didn't absolutely love, and they're quick reads as well. I'd start with The Lives of Christopher Chant, personally, but there are six of them total and you can pretty much read them in any order.

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