Witches' Brew (Magic Kingdom of Landover, #5)

by Terry Brooks

With peace reigning in the Magic Kingdom at last, Ben Holiday was finally free to lie back and watch his daughter grow. Which she did - by leaps and bounds. Born a seedling and nourished by soil from Landover, Earth and the fairy mists, Mistaya was a unique child, as dazzling as her mother, the sylph Willow, and fiery and impatient with those who couldn't keep up with her lightning- fast development. But Ben's idyll was not to last. The dark and pitiless Rydall, king of lands beyond the fairy mists, was at the gates of Sterling Silver. His armies ready to invade if Ben would not accept his challenge: to face and defeat seven different champions of Rydall's choice. And accept he must, for Mistaya had been snatched from her guardians by foul magic and only Rydall had the key to her fate ...

• ISBN10: 0099562111
• ISBN13: 9780099562115
• Publish Date: 1 January 2000 (first published 20 April 1995)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 November 2009
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Legend paperbacks
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

This book is on par or better than the fourth book, Tangle Box. The fourth book was better, though still flawed, than the boring dismal second and third books.

I was correct about my predictions about Abernathy in my review for the 4th book. He is now again a dog but I still feel that he'll be back to his original state at the end of the series. There's only one book left, The Princess of Landover, which I will read next to find out the end.

It's no surprise that Nightshade came back to reek havoc in this book, it was outright stated this would be the case in Tangle Box. It was bit frustrating that the main characters didn't see this til the end, but their denseness was more understandable. The trip along the way wasn't as bad or boring as before as well.

I enjoyed learning about Mistaya, Willow's and Ben's daughter. I can see her blossoming and becoming a true character. I worry a bit if Mistaya will face the same fate Willow was subjected to in the beginning of the series. Merely fulfilling a trope and being a bad caricatures of a person. I have high hopes since she's received great treatment of this book but it wouldn't be a first time a female character fell short or to the wayside to fit in the narrow confines of fantasy trope.

Still lots of tropes and predictability, but it is indeed a more enjoying light summer read for the fantasy genre. I enjoyed it. It's a nice break from long, involving or "High" fantasy books. It's not for everyone but currently I'm enjoying it. I hope the last book doesn't make me regret this endeavor.

I'm going to hunt down the last book, to see if slogging through the mediocre and downright badness of several of the books in this series was worth it in the end.