Sword of Truth

Wizard's First Rule  By Terry Goodkind

Where to start with this series? It's ver good from the start. The story line immediatly grabs your attention, and starts you asking questions, questions that can only be answered from continued reading. This is a long series, it currently runs out to 11 books, and has even been broken into seperate mini trilogies. The character development moves along at a good pace. The books do seem to repeat themselves a bit. And the plot can become stagnant, but in the end they are a very good read.

A quick synopsis:

The series is set in a world divided into two major regions: the New World and the Old World. The New World consists of three lands with Westland in the west, D'Hara in the east and the Midlands in the centre of the two. D'Hara is ruled by a magically gifted member of the Rahl family, while the welfare of the Midlands is decided by a council of representatives led by the Mother Confessor, who is also the leader of the Confessors. The Confessors are a group of women who each have a magical power to force a person to become entirely devoted to them, allowing them to fulfill their purpose - to find the truth. Westland, a land of no magic, is also ruled by a council of representatives. The Old World is not introduced until the second book in the series and its geographical features are described in less detail.
The main character is a young man named Richard Cypher, a Westland woods guide whose simple life is forever changed after he becomes the Seeker of Truth - a position similar to that of a Confessor, requiring him to uphold justice in the world. Over the course of the series, Richard learns about his heritage while seeking to stop the evil that others would unleash upon the world of the living. Because Richard refuses to sacrifice his values and lives his life as a free man, others begin to understand the nobility of man and what it means to be free. Each book is loosely themed around a Wizard's Rule, tenets by which all wizards should abide. The eleventh full-length novel, Confessor, concludes the series' central story arc regarding the invasion of the Imperial Order, an empire in the Old World led by Jagang.

Follow this link, Wizard's First Rule (The Sword of Truth) to get started with the series!