Son of a Witch: A Novel [Paperback]

The Wicked Years continue in Gregory Maguire’sSon of a Witch—the heroic saga of the hapless yet determined young man who may or may not be the offspring of the fabled Wicked Witch of the West. ANew York Timesbestseller like its predecessor, the remarkableWicked, Son of a Witchfollows the boy Liir on his dark odyssey across an ingeniously re-imagined and nearly unrecognizable Land of Oz—a journey that will take him deep into the bowels of theEmeraldCity, lately abandoned by the Wizard, and into the jaws of dragons. At once a grim fairy tale and an uplifting adventure,Son of a Witchis a true wonder.

Ten years after the publication ofWicked, beloved novelist Gregory Maguire returns to the land of Oz to introduce us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. But he is tended to at the Cloister of Saint Glinda by the silent novice called Candle, who wills him back to life with her musical gifts. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape—but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison, Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liilc.