Wicked Years #03: A Lion Among Men

In the third volume of Gregory Maguires acclaimed series, the Wicked Years, we return to Oz, seen now through the eyes of the Cowardly Lion.

While civil war looms in Oz, Brrr—the Cowardly Lion—surrenders the story of his life to a tetchy oracle named Yackle. Abandoned as a cub, Brrrs path from infancy in the Great Gillikan Forest is no Yellow Brick Road. Seeking to redress an early mistake, he trudges through a swamp of ghosts, becomes implicated in a massacre of trolls, falls in love with a forbidding Cat princess, and avoids a jail sentence by agreeing to serve as a lackey to the war-mongering Emperor of Oz.

A portrait of a would-be survivor and a panoramic glimpse of a world gone shrill with war fever, Gregory Maguires A Lion Among Men is written with the sympathy and power that have made his books contemporary classics.

Return to a darker Oz with Gregory Maguire. In A Lion Among Men, the third volume in Maguires acclaimed, New York Times bestselling series The Wicked Years, a fuller, more complex Cowardly Lion is brought to life and gets to tell his remarkable tale. It is a story of oppression and fear in a world gone mad with war fever—of Munchkins, Wizards, and Wicked Witches—and especially of a gentle soul and determined survivor who is truly A Lion Among Men.

Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister; Lost; Mirror, Mirror; and the Wicked Years series, including Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Wicked, now a beloved classic, is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.