Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart.
When I first heard about
Shadow and Bone, I wasn't interested. The cover looked fine, but the title? Too close to
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, The Book of Blood and Shadow, and all the other similar titles floating around recently.
But then people started buzzing about it. It's a fantasyland based off of Russia, they said. I do love Russia (the absolute best way to say goodbye -
do svidaniya - is Russian, after all). There are flesh-eating monsters, and who doesn't love a flesh-eating monster from time to time? Most of all, no one would shut up about how GOOD the book was, so I picked it up.
And let me tell you, it was good.