Product Description

Princess Mistaya Holiday hasn't been fitting in too well at Carrington Women's Preparatory. People don't seem to appreciate her using her magic to settle matters in the human world. So when she summons a dragon to teach a lesson to the snotty school bully, she finds herself suspended. But Mistaya couldn't care less - she wants nothing more than to continue her studies under Questor the court magician and Abernathy the court scribe. However, her father Ben Holiday, the King of Landover, has rather different plans in mind for her. He thinks he'll teach her about perseverance and compromise by sending her to renovate Libiris, the long-abandoned royal library. How horribly dull. But before long, Mistaya will long for the boredom of cataloguing an unfeasible number of derelict books - for deep within the library there lies a secret so dangerous that it threatens the future of Landover itself ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21588 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

About the Author
Terry Brooks was a practising attorney for many years, but now writes full-time. His first novel, THE SWORD OF SHANNARA, remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 5 months, and this was followed by 13 consecutive bestselling novels.

Customer Reviews

No Magic Here...
I read all of this series as they were published, reading the first "Magic Kingdom For Sale--Sold!" as a 12 year old way back in 1987. I'm a big fan of the series, and when Terry Brooks announced he was writing this latest, I set about re-reading the whole series back-to-back in preparation for the new release. And now it's here, all I can say about it is...Weak. The previous series of 5 books were consistently entertaining, imaginative and captivating. Quite why after a 14 year gap Terry Brooks was unable to create a story equally good is a mystery. It begins promisingly enough, with all the old characters there and being their usual selves, but by the half-way point I realised it was becoming very predictable and dull, and by the end was just glad the sorry mess was over. One of the fun things of the rest of the series was the frequent trips between Earth and Landover, and the contrasts and chaos this would throw into the mix. There's almost nothing of that here. Furthermore, Ben Holiday is relegated to a second-place character behind his teenage daughter Mistaya (who's story this is), poor Willow gets even less to do, appearing in about three scenes and barely speaking, and there's no appearance from the Paladin. At least Questor Thews is given stuff to do, though not as much as earlier books. As for the new characters Mistaya is vaguely interesting, but as a child of three worlds (Earth, Landover and Faerie) is underdeveloped, as are all the rest of the new characters, most of which are more caricatures than characters. Sadly I got the feeling that Terry Brooks got bored of writing it towards the end; a prime example being at the end when (giving absolutely nothing away) Questor states that a hinted-at devious trap set to capture Ben Holiday was so wicked and fiendish that he refuses to tell anyone (including the reader) how it was supposed to have gone. This just smacks of laziness and a lack of imagination, and leaves the reader feeling short-changed. In fact that's how I feel about the whole tale. Very disappointing. Terry Brooks has hinted that he has ideas for another couple of Landover books. Let's hope if they appear then they are a return to form. The only light on the horizon is that this latest potentially sets up some genuinely interesting and exciting events yet to occur (Nightshade's return and a chance to finally unite the Crown with the Lords of the Greensward).

Ok but no Cigar!
I was really looking forward to reading A princess of Landover as I enjoyed the previous books so much but was very disappointed with this effort.
I just hope Terry Brooks redeems himself with another book soon, this time up to his usual standard!

'Made for cable'
Princess is a well known tale, using a well known formula. Picture a rebellious teen, who has a journey in which she develops an awareness of self and a respect for those around her. It's been seen a hundred times in trashy teen movies and the formula has now had a fantasy make over, in the familiar Landover world. Princess is mostly a story by the numbers, never really getting out of first gear. The characters are stereotypical and the plot is straight as an arrow, the only real diversion is the crafty and coy Prism Cat. It's a quick read and opens up avenues for further adventures in Landover which will hopefully rekindle some of the spirit seen in the earlier entries. **1/2