Within our present reality lies a hidden magical kingdom in desperate need of a new leader. The kingdom of Landover is tucked away in the wilderness, with only one person holding the key to entry.

If you love fantasy novels, this thought pulls at your imagination with the ‘what ifs’. What if this really could exist… what if, hidden deep within the mountains, is a magical kingdom just awaiting my arrival. What if I really could escape the present reality, and enter a world driven by magic.

In this novel, Ben Holiday, lawyer and entrepreneur, stumbles into the perfect real estate deal at the most opportune time in his life. He is ready to be finished with this world and start a new life, with better, happier memories. Ben purchases the kingdom of Landover for a hefty price and soon embarks upon the journey of his life. Landover is a new world that is kept alive by the magic within it. But without a king, the magic slowly fades away. Enter Ben. Ben will serve as the king of the land, but he has quite a bit to learn along the way.

He is met at his castle with a small entourage of loyal servants who soon become his closest allies. He makes plenty of enemies on his journey to survive as king, and the novel takes us through his adventure with plenty of twists and turns along the way.

I picked up this book primarily because of my respect for Terry Brooks’ other novels, namely The Shannara Series and Child of Light. While this was a powerful book, and quite entertaining, it wouldn’t make the top of my favorites by Brooks. The missing piece for me was the creativity of the magic. Part of the lure of Fantasy is the imaginative magic and the creativity behind it. While Ben had some access to a particular kind of magic by serving as king, it was not by any means a powerful source or a wide variety of magic displayed. Within Landover, there are magical creatures such as dragons, witches and water fairies, but the magic itself is quite limited.

The book had a slower start, so it did take some patience to reach a point where it truly piqued my interest. This might be partly due to the lack of magic I mentioned, but it felt like it took a while to get into any particular action or excitement.

Despite these misgivings, the novel had some strong attributes. It had an enjoyable cast of supporting characters, such as the crafty Kobalts whose stark loyalty saved Ben’s life countless times, and the court scribe (man turned talking dog by magic gone wrong) who adds a good amount of sarcasm and dry humor.

I also felt like the ending brought things together nicely, and left a good window of opportunity for the next book in the series, The Black Unicorn. I’ll be writing a review for this one soon!