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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:An acorn falls far from the tree Former Chicago lawyer Ben Holiday was very proud and quite happy. And why shouldn't he be? The Magic Kingdom which he ruled as High Lord was finally at peace. He was free to lie back and watch as his new daughter grew. And grow she did--by leaps and bournds, shooting through infancy in a matter of months. She took her first steps and learned to swim in the same week. An amalgam of magic and heredity, Mistaya was born a seedling, nourished by soils from Landover, Earth, and the fairy mists, come into being in the dank, misty deadness of the Deep Fell. She was as lovely as her mother, the sylph Willow, with dazzling green eyes that cut to the soul. Ben wished he could enjoy his daughter's childhood and his happy kingdom forever. Alas, those idyllic days were not to last. For Rydall, king of lands beyond the fairy mist, rode up to the gates of Sterling Silver and shattered peace of Landover. His armies were poised on the border, ready to invade unless Ben accepted a challenge: Rydall would send seven champions to face Ben, each in a different form. If Ben triumphed over all seven, Rydall would then abandon his claims to the kingdom. 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... From the Hardcover edition..… (more)
User reviews
Maybe it's just the move to Washington, but it was very cool to see Abernathy and Quester set in a local environment for me as a reader. I was hoping Elizabeth would reappear in the series, but the potential relationship between herself and Abernathy gets dumped by the wayside for Ben and Willow's story. *grumble*
Okay, I'm complaining a lot. I did like this book, but I never felt pressed to keep reading, so I started and stopped several times along the way. The side characters her are much improved and, while it's not my favorite Landover book, I thought it was a good one.
In this one, Ben Holiday and Willow's daughter, Mistaya, is growing at an astounding
In the last book, I complained that Ben seemed pretty dense, which was odd considering that he had been a high priced, successful attorney in Chicago and was now king of the land. In this book, he's just as dense and so is Willow. In fact, they spend most of their time together in the book "holding" each other for support -- and that gets pretty damn old very quick.
There is magic in this book, of course. And we get to see some of the characters we know and like, such as the Earth Mother and her mud puppy and Strabo, the dragon. And Ben does somehow defeat several monsters through the help of his alter ego, the Paladin. But by the time Ben has figured out what's going on, the reader figured everything out eons before and is annoyed by his ineptitude and I've got to fault Brooks for that. I want to give this three stars, but because it's a Landover book and I enjoy the series and because it does introduce some new people and elements to the setting, I'll give it four. Cautiously recommended.