The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind is a favorite of mine (thanks to my husband for introducing me to it!).
![[Image: The_Sword_of_Truth_cover_designs.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/The_Sword_of_Truth_cover_designs.png)
Confessors, Wizards, Mord-Sith, and ordinary people being extraordinary. What more can you ask for? The writing is brilliant and while I normally don't enjoy overly verbose authors, Goodkind has a way of weaving this brilliant picture that you can't help but get pulled into. His characters are extremely well developed and grow perfectly with each hardship and quest they face. Oh! and nothing he writes is simply to fill words on a page or to give you a break from the main story. Everything has a purpose. A small detail from an early book can come back to be the answer they're looking for in one of the last.
It's a story of a man that refuses to sacrifice his values and conform to bad people in powerful places.  It's a story of others understanding what it means to be free and that freedom is worth sacrificing for. It's a love story. The story starts out dim, fades to dark, dips into hellish yet all the while you have this hope being pumped through the story through the main characters that pulls you through and keeps you going right along with them no matter what happens.
Did I mention well developed characters? And the magic in these books. We all know wizards. Magic, pew-pew laser beams. Goodkind sticks to the familiarity of 'high fantasy' but in the same turn expounds upon it in such phenomenal and creative ways.
Also.. Moth** F**king Mord-Sith. My favorite 'bad guy' ever.
Edit:
Do NOT watch the TV series they made about this book series. It's AWFUL.
(When compared to the book series... if watched as a stand alone.. meh. I liken it to Xena or Hercules minus a lot of the levity.)
Confessors, Wizards, Mord-Sith, and ordinary people being extraordinary. What more can you ask for? The writing is brilliant and while I normally don't enjoy overly verbose authors, Goodkind has a way of weaving this brilliant picture that you can't help but get pulled into. His characters are extremely well developed and grow perfectly with each hardship and quest they face. Oh! and nothing he writes is simply to fill words on a page or to give you a break from the main story. Everything has a purpose. A small detail from an early book can come back to be the answer they're looking for in one of the last.
It's a story of a man that refuses to sacrifice his values and conform to bad people in powerful places.  It's a story of others understanding what it means to be free and that freedom is worth sacrificing for. It's a love story. The story starts out dim, fades to dark, dips into hellish yet all the while you have this hope being pumped through the story through the main characters that pulls you through and keeps you going right along with them no matter what happens.
Did I mention well developed characters? And the magic in these books. We all know wizards. Magic, pew-pew laser beams. Goodkind sticks to the familiarity of 'high fantasy' but in the same turn expounds upon it in such phenomenal and creative ways.
Also.. Moth** F**king Mord-Sith. My favorite 'bad guy' ever.
Edit:
Do NOT watch the TV series they made about this book series. It's AWFUL.
(When compared to the book series... if watched as a stand alone.. meh. I liken it to Xena or Hercules minus a lot of the levity.)
