Shadow and Bone

by Leigh Bardugo

Alina Starkov is a mapmaker's assistant in the Ravkan army when she discovers she is a Sun Summoner: a Grisha with the rarest power in the world, one that could destroy the Fold and reunite the kingdom. Brought to the Little Palace to train under the Darkling, the most powerful Grisha alive, she begins to understand that power this rare attracts attention of a particularly dangerous kind. A trilogy about the cost of being extraordinary in a world that wants to use extraordinary people, and about whether the promise of salvation is ever worth the price attached to it.

Part of Grishaverse

A fantasy world divided between the Ravkan Empire and its neighbours, where certain people are born with the ability to manipulate matter at its most fundamental level. These people are called Grisha, and their powers - over elements, living tissue, or the fabrication of materials - have made them both essential and feared. The world is politically unstable, riven by nationalism, religious suspicion of Grisha power, and the ambitions of several competing empires. At its edges sit stranger things: a fold of impenetrable darkness teeming with monsters, a city of canals and mercenary gangs, and the remnants of a civilisation that understood more about Grisha power than anyone alive. The series spans three interconnected storylines: a war epic about a girl who discovers a rare power that could change the world, a heist story following a crew of extraordinary criminals in a corrupt city-state, and a political thriller about two rulers trying to hold a fragile kingdom together, all set in the same world at roughly the same time.

Publication Order

1
Shadow and Bone
2012
2
Siege and Storm
2013
3
Ruin and Rising
2014