But not light - until now.īardugo’s setup is shiver-inducing, of the delicious variety. Grisha manipulate wind, fire, tides, steel, flesh and even darkness. So when the regiment is attacked by volcra in the Fold, what power could be more fitting to burst forth from the mousy Alina, facing death in the dark, than the ability to summon light? Ravkan life is defined by darkness: that of the Fold, and that of the Darkling, the most powerful of the Grisha, a figure as feared as he is revered. A vast, lightless void, it splits Ravka in two, forcing perilous crossings through the darkness in silent skiffs, soldiers’ fingers at their triggers lest the volcra - savage winged monsters - hear or smell them. This Shadow Fold is the legacy of Grisha magic gone bad. She’s also an affecting narrator Bardugo’s clean writing wins the reader easily to Alina’s side as her regiment marches toward the Shadow Fold, the kingdom’s curse and calamity: “a swath of nearly impenetrable darkness that grew with every passing year and crawled with horrors.” And she’s all but friendless except for Mal, who has grown up to be a head-turner and inevitably drifts away from his former companion.

She’s a skinny, nervous girl, brittle, unremarkable. Tested as children for the rare magical ability that would destine them for the Grisha - elite magician-soldiers of the kingdom’s “Second Army” - Alina and Mal are found wanting and are conscripted instead into the common army.Īlina is a perfect specimen of the “nothing-specialness” essential to the book’s central theme. Leigh Bardugo’s first novel, “Shadow and Bone,” does so straight from its opening lines, pulling the reader into a mesmerizing exploration of one of the most potent fantasy novel motifs: the discovery of hidden strength within oneself.Ī war orphan, Alina Starkov is raised on charity on the estate of a minor noble in Ravka (picture a fantasy Russia of samovars and horse-drawn sleighs), along with her best friend and fellow orphan, Mal. Like the expert strike of a reflex hammer, it hits precisely the right spot. There may be nothing new under the sun, but a good story makes you just not care. Others affirm the elemental power of these tropes, reminding us not only why we read fantasy, but also why we read at all.

Some fantasy novels deal out the tropes of the genre like cards from a dog-eared deck.

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo