Madly in Love on... Tuesday?

That's right, it's a special edition of Madly in Love because it's Tuesday! So happy Tuesday everyone. Just in case you're visiting for the first time or need a reminder about the madly in love segment, here's a breakdown:

Madly in love is a weekly (usually) post I make featuring a book that I've fallen so "madly in love" with, I had to share it with all of you. I usually write the post on Monday but obviously not this week. As a fan of the romance genre, the majority of books I post are romance books. But just about anything and everything can crop up and today is a good example of something different!

On one of the forums I frequent, a woman was asking for reading suggestions for her 4 young sons (early teens). I thought about the books I read at that age but then something else came to me. A series perfect for kids of all ages but one that I read and fell in love with as an adult. No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter, although it would also apply.

I'm talking about my Madly in Love pick this week: David Eddings' epic fantasy series The Belgariad (and the sequel series The Mallorean since I always lump them together in my head).

These books are amazing. They have everything a great quest fantasy needs, a simple farm boy with a heroic destiny, an evil villan, a warrior, a sorceress, and a magical object of power that can be used for good or evil. And that's just scratching the surface. This is the novel that first started my fascination with dryads as well as one of the female leads is one. If you're in the mood for something non-romance or a fan of fantasy books, I highly recommend these.

Blurb for Pawn of Prophecy (book one in the Belgariad):

It all begins with the theft of the Orb that for so long protected the West from an evil god. As long as the Orb was at Riva, the prophecy went, its people would be safe from this corrupting power. Garion, a simple farm boy, is familiar with the legend of the Orb, but skeptical in matters of magic. Until, through a twist of fate, he learns not only that the story of the Orb is true, but that he must set out on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger to help recover it. For Garion is a child of destiny, and fate itself is leading him far from his home, sweeping him irrevocably toward a distant tower—and a cataclysmic confrontation with a master of the darkest magic.