The cry of the magpie

The Magpie's Cry audiobook, written by Dana Beranová, read by Kateřina Mendlová Jírů, directed by Ondřej Černý. Henika the Witch #2 The sequel to the award-winning fantasy The Magpie's Song with an unconventional main character. Henika doesn't crave more adventures; she just wants to live in her little house, continue to heal the local people, and dream of her unrequited love for the blacksmith. But fate has something else in store for her. Her journey to uncover the truth alongside an unexpected ally will be far more demanding, treacherous, and painful than she ever expected. The land is on the brink of civil war, and the mad king is murdering the remaining survivors of the three forbidden orders and anyone who disagrees with him. It seems things can't get any worse. Henika is soon to learn otherwise, and she will also face a difficult choice. She seeks allies throughout the land and returns to places she has been before, where a chapter of her life and of the entire country may finally close. DANA BERANOVÁ She was born in Jičín. At the age of twenty, she moved to a village, where she still lives with her husband and two daughters. She continues to commute to Jičín for work at the hospital. She started writing in primary school. First poems, later short stories and fairy tales. Her fantasy debut was for children. It is called Eva and the Book of Knowledge and was published in 2014. She has remained faithful to the genre ever since, with the short story Never Say Never, which can be found in the anthology The Woman with the Lion (2016). In April 2022, her short story Pláňata was published in Pevnost magazine, which is part of the book about Henika, the witch healer, published in autumn 2022 under the title The Magpie's Song. She is currently writing the second volume. The fantasy theme has also permeated Dana's other work, namely writing song lyrics for which her husband composes the melodies. KATEŘINA MENDLOVÁ JÍRŮ Kateřina Mendlová Jírů graduated from the Brno Conservatory and then became a member of the Radost Brno theatre, where she was a permanent member for more than ten years. On the stage, Horáčková became Hanička in Jirásek's Lucerna and Jessica in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In addition to these roles, she also drew significant attention for her portrayal of Nastasya Filippovna in Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's The Idiot, staged by J. Janěková Sr. at the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc, where she was a guest performer. Besides her theatre roles, Horáčková very often appears in public with a microphone in hand as a presenter of various children's, cultural, social, or sporting events, or as a voice-over artist for television and radio commercials or audiobooks.