Shadow and Bone

Leigh Bardugo

Jun 2012 · The Shadow and Bone Trilogy Book 1 · Sold by Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

About this ebook

See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with the Netflix series, Shadow and Bone -- Season 2 streaming now!

Discover the adventure that started it all and meet Alina, Mal, and the Darkling in Shadow and Bone from #1 bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo.

Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold—a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite—and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.

As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.

Welcome to Ravka . . . a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.

A New York Times Bestseller
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
An Indie Next List Book
This title has Common Core connections.

Read all the books in the Grishaverse!

The Shadow and Bone Trilogy
(previously published as The Grisha Trilogy)
Shadow and Bone
Siege and Storm
Ruin and Rising

The Six of Crows Duology
Six of Crows
Crooked Kingdom

The King of Scars Duology
King of Scars
Rule of Wolves

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic
The Severed Moon: A Year-Long Journal of Magic
The Lives of Saints
Demon in the Wood Graphic Novel

Praise for the Grishaverse

“A master of fantasy.” —The Huffington Post
“Utterly, extremely bewitching.” —The Guardian

Ratings and reviews

Great IDEA for a story. But the delivery was weak... I found parts of the book to be painfully drawn out or repeated which really was annoying and did nothing to enhance the read through. And the parts that were supposed to be emotional were too cliché. The explanation for why certain things were happening felt like an afterthought at times. Way to much time spent on the random "what's Mal doing" thoughts. This book just lacked in substance and felt too "failed cookie cutter" in my opinion.

Character development and motivations felt shallow. I read this as an ebook and had no idea how many pages were in the book. I have been reading a lot of books in the 500+ page range lately so when the story started to pick up speed around 250 pages in, I thought, 'ok, it started kind of slow but there is plenty of time to make something cool'. I expected the story to really blossom but instead it just sort of ended. Quite disappointed.

I really liked this fantasy world created by Leigh, the plot twist she gave with Alexander's intentions were very *chef kiss*. However I felt that the development of the storyline is a bit slow or maybe it's because something exciting doesn't truly happen in the middle of it. But beyond that, I really like it and I genuinely can't wait to read the rest of the Grishaverse.

About the author

Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Ninth House series and the creator of the Grishaverse, which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy (now a Netflix series), the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology—and much more. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.