Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shadow and Bone | 2012 | Leigh Bardugo | Buy |
| 2 | Siege and Storm | 2013 | Leigh Bardugo | Buy |
| 3 | Ruin and Rising | 2014 | Leigh Bardugo | Buy |
Alina Starkov is a mapmaker in the First Army of Ravka, a country split in two by a swath of impenetrable darkness called the Shadow Fold. Monsters live inside it. When Alina’s regiment tries to cross the Fold, they’re attacked, and Alina discovers she can summon light. She’s taken to the Little Palace to train with the Grisha, people who can manipulate matter at the molecular level. The Darkling, their leader, believes Alina is the key to destroying the Fold.
Leigh Bardugo wrote the trilogy while working in journalism and makeup effects in Los Angeles. She built the Grishaverse around Russian and Slavic influences rather than the Western European settings that dominate most fantasy. The Grisha magic system is framed as a form of science, with practitioners manipulating specific elements. Bardugo has said she wanted the world to feel lived-in and politically complicated.
The trilogy follows Alina’s growing power and her relationship with the Darkling, who is both mentor and antagonist. The second and third books expand the world, introducing new factions and deepening the political stakes. Bardugo completed the trilogy in 2014, then set two more books in the same universe with Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom.
The series has sold millions of copies worldwide. Netflix adapted it as a television series in 2021, combining storylines from the trilogy and the Six of Crows duology.