When their regiment is sent into the Shadow Fold, it is almost immediately met with disaster. Of course, Mal doesn't realize any of this and treats her like a sister. Her only family is her best friend and fellow soldier Mal, with whom she has been secretly in love for years. Raised in an orphanage with no discernible magical abilities, Alina accepts this as her lot in life and the only way she can be useful to her country. In the first book, Alina Starkov is a young woman who lives the simple life of a mapmaker, travelling with the First Ravkan Army and charting The Shadow Fold, a mysterious dark region that splits Ravka into two and is considered to be uncrossable because of the monstrous Volcra that lurk within. Those who do not possess this power are called Otkazat'sya, and function normally as shopkeepers, laborers and soldiers. Set primarily in the fictional country of Ravka, there is a form of magic that exists known as ' The Small Science.' Those who can wield it are called Grisha, powerful practitioners considered to be a part of an exclusive class.

She also wrote The Nikolai Duology which serves as a sequel to both this series and Six of Crows. It is also the series that spawned The Grishaverse.Īdditionally, Bardugo wrote the spin-off series Six of Crows, set in Kerch two years after the events of Ruin and Rising. The Grisha Trilogy is a set of adventure-fantasy Young Adult novels written by American author Leigh Bardugo. 'What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.'

The grisha trilogy leigh bardugo