WITCHES’ BREW Former Chicago lawyer Ben Holiday was proud and happy. The Magic Kingdom of Landover, which he ruled as High Lord, was finally at peace, and he and his wife, the sylph Willow, could watch their daughter Mistaya grow. And grow she did - shooting through infancy in months, learning to walk and to swim in the same week. Mistaya had been born a seedling, nourished by soils from Landover, Earth, and the fairy mists, come into being in the deadness of the Deep Fell. With dazzling green eyes that cut to the soul, she was as lovely as her mother, and Ben wanted nothing more than to enjoy his daughter’s childhood and his peaceful kingdom forever. But his idyll was interrupted when Rydall, a king of lands beyond the fairy mist, assembled armies on Landover’s border and threatened to invade unless Ben was able to defeat Rydall’s seven champions. Some counseled the High Lord to refuse Rydall’s challenge, but Holiday could not, for Mistaya had been snatched from her guardians by foul magic. And Rydall held the key to her fate....
A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER Ben Holiday, Chicago lawyer and mere mortal turned monarch of enchanted Landover, has grappled with scheming barons, fire-breathing beasts, diabolical conjurers, and wicked witches. None of whom have prepared him for the most daunting of challengers—a teenage daughter. Sent by Ben and his beloved sylph bride, Willow, to an exclusive girls’ prep school, headstrong Mistaya Holiday has found life in the natural world a less than perfect fit. And when her latest rebellious antics get her indefinitely suspended, she’s determined to resume her real education—learning sorcery from court wizard Questor Thews—whether her parents like it or not. But back home in Landover, Mistaya’s frustrated father is just as determined that the princess learn some responsibility, and he declares her grounded until she successfully refurbishes the royal library. Mortified by the prospect of salvaging a king’s ransom in moldy books Mistaya decides that the only way to run her own life is to run away from home. So begins an eventful odyssey peppered with a formidable dragon, recalcitrant gnomes, an inscrutable magic cat, a handsome librarian, a sinister sorcerer, and more than a few narrow escapes as fate draws Landover’s intrepid princess to the last place she expected to go, and into the thick of a mystery that will put her mettle to the test.
Performed by Dick Hill. 2 MP3 CDs (approximately 24 hr.) : digital
Terry Brooks was born in Illinois in 1944, where he spent a great deal of his childhood and early adulthood dreaming up stories in and around Sinnissippi Park, the very same park that would eventually become the setting for his bestselling Word & Void trilogy. He went to college and received his undergraduate degree from Hamilton College, where he majored in English Literature, and he received his graduate degree from the School of Law at Washington & Lee University. A writer since high school, he wrote many stories within the genres of science fiction, western, fiction, and non-fiction, until one semester early in his college years he was given The Lord of the Rings to read. That moment changed Terry's life forever, because in Tolkien's great work he found all the elements needed to fully explore his writing combined in one genre. He then wrote The Sword of Shannara, the seven year grand result retaining sanity while studying at Washington & Lee University and practicing law. It became the first work of fiction ever to appear on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list, where it remained for over five months.